CHEISTIAN ASPECTS 

OP 

FAITH AND D U 



CHRISTIAN ASPECTS 

OF 

FAITH AID DUTY. 



DISCOUKSES 

BY 

JOHN JAMES TAYLER, B.A. 



T« SSyftara av eroipa e%e irpos to to. OeTa kcli dvdpcbTriva. si&ivai Kal irav 
Koi to fxiK()6raTOv ovrco nouiVy w> rijs djjKpoTepuv rcpos a\\r]\a avvSeaeois 
[i£[Xvr]pEuov. Ovts yap avQpwnivov tl avsv rjjj exl tol Qeta cvvavacpopas sv 
irpa&is, ovte epiraXiv. — Marcus Antoninus, in. 13. 

4 You will not understand the Human without a reference to the Divine, nor 
the Divine without a reference to the Human.' 

FROM THE LONDON EDITION, 
WITH AN INTRODUCTION. 

NE¥-Y OEK: 
C. S. FRANCIS & CO., 252 BROADW 

M.DCCC.LI. 



AY. 



INTRODUCTION. 



This volume will sufficiently commend itself to 
those who read it. But the publisher has thought 
that a brief introduction of it to the American public 
would aid its circulation. Having fallen in with an 
English copy of the work during my summer vaca- 
tion, from which I received great instruction and 
delight, it was with peculiar satisfaction that I found 
it in process of republication on my return to New- 
York. We have seen nothing from Mr. Tayler's 
pen before, justifying the enthusiasm with which his 
English brethren are accustomed to speak of him. 
But we understand from this volume, how full his 
claims are to the respect and admiration of the de- 
nomination he adorns. 

It is not so much as sermons, but rather as essays 
upon the most immediately and permanently interest- 
ing topics of Christian thought, that we value these dis- 
courses. "While treating the general subject of prac- 
tical religion, they grapple with the very questions 
that are now agitating the mind of the religious 
world. There is a frankness and courage in meet- 

\ 



vi 



INTRODUCTION . 



ing doubts and difficulties, a union of boldness of 
thought with reverence of spirit, a sympathy with 
the explorers and pioneers of modern thought, 
blended with gratitude and docility toward past 
thinkers, a manly, business-like dealing with reli- 
gion, — which, together, make this volume singularly 
pertinent to the wants of the times, and admirably 
adapted to hold the beam, while freedom and au- 
thority, dogmatism and doubt, are agitating the 
scales of theological opinion. But it would be an 
injustice to the author, did we emit to say, that his 
Discourses, though peculiarly timely, are not depen- 
dent for their interest on the period of their appear- 
ance. They deal with permanent realities in a man- 
ner and spirit, which is for all times. They are rather 
positive enunciations of Christian truths, than-con 
troversial arguments upon disputed points. 

We cannot forbear to ask attention to the careful 
finish of the author's style. It is calm, clear and 
strong, rising at times into the most grace&il elo- 
quence. 

Among the many and increasing obligations 
under which our English brethren are placing us, 
we gratefully acknowledge the wei'ght of this new 
gift. 

H. W. B. 

New- York, Sept. 25, 1851. 



PREFACE. 



This Yolume is published in compliance with 
earnest and repeated request ; and that is the 
proper apology for its appearance. Never indeed 
can the themes of which it treats, lose their interest 
with the thoughtful and the serious : but there are 
few minds that can hope by any originality of con- 
ception or freshness of illustration, to set in a new 
light and invest with a new attractiveness, those 
aspects of our relation to the great realities of the 
Universe visible and invisible, which under some 
form or other are ever present to the human con- 
sciousness, and age after age have had the richest 
lights reflected on them from the most gifted spirits. 
No such presumptuous hope would ever have de- 
livered these pages to the world. — But we may ex- 
act too much from ourselves ; over-estimate our 
claims as well as under-estimate our powers ; and 
omit to do good, from miscalculating our capacity 
of usefulness. By aiming at too high an intel- 



viii 



PREFACE. 



lectual standard, we may let slip the more obvious 
and certain opportunities of moral influence, which 
ever wait on sincerity and earnestness, the honest 
pursuit of truth and the ardent desire of human 
happiness. It is a comfort to feel, that this Yolume 
is put forth under circumstances which give it the 
promise of some beneficial impression on the minds 
to which it is immediately addressed. It is com- 
mitted to them in the full trust, that the remem- 
brance of the friend will in some measure sup- 
ply the defects of the writer ; that the mutual con- 
fidence and understanding of a long and happy in- 
tercourse will infuse a deeper significance into 
words that might else fail to interest or convince ; 
and that many a passage, associated with the me- 
mory of the living sympathies that once took it to 
the conscience and the heart, will gather a light 
from affections which have been purified and 
brightened by the common sorrows and joys of 
many years, and are destined, it is hoped, to en- 
dure unchanged through the evening of life. — To 
those who share with the writer these grateful re- 
collections and happy feelings — this Volume is de- 
dicated. — If it shall help to preserve in their hearts, 
while they tarry here, the living spirit of the Ee- 
ligion of Christ ; — to cherish their enthusiasm for 
what is pure and noble and generous; — to urge 



PREFACE. 



ix 



them to a high and self-denying virtue ; to give 
them the strength of faith nnder affliction and trial ; 
— and to fill them with a calm and holy trust in 
the expectation of the last great change : — it will 
have performed its task, and may pass contentedly 
to its rest with the generation which it has served 
in its day to comfort and instruct. The small 
drops that from endless sources instil a strengthen- 
ing sweetness into the draught of life, cannot be 
counted and are soon forgotten ; but their united 
influence leaves the world better and happier than 
it would else have been. 

Should this Yolume attract the notice of any 
minds unprepossessed by such friendly associations 
— their candid judgment is bespoken in behalf of 
some views that may be found not wholly in ac- 
cordance with the received opinions of the Chris- 
tian world; and should the quarter whence it 
comes raise a prejudice which repels examination, 
let them consider the words of the humble and 
pious a Kempis — ' Non quaeras quis hoc dixerit, sed 
quid dicatur attende.' 



March 25, 1851. 



CONTENTS. 



^ Page. 
Spiritual Hunger and Thirst, 9 

n. 

Man's Ascent to God, ....... 25 

in. 

God's Descent to Man, . , . . . . 42 

IV. 

Christ the Mediator, 59 

V. 

The Harmony of the Divine and Human in Christ, . 76 

VI. 

The Distinctive and Permanent in Christianity, . . 94 

VII. 

The Footsteps of Christ, Ill 

vni. 

The Veil taken from the Heart, . . ' . • .128 

IX. 

The Coincidence of General and Special Providence, 141 

X. 

The True Expression of Human Brotherhood, . .161 



Xli CONTENTS. 

XI. 

Faith, the Assurance of the Soul, . . . .180 

XII. 

The Spirit of the Commandments and the Spirit of Life, 195 



XIII. 

The Blessing of Sorrow, 214 

XIV. 

More Justice and Less Charity, 229 

XV. 

Simplicity of Heart, 248 

XVI. 

The True Knowledge of Life, 262 

XVII. 

The Religion of the Intellect and the Religion of the 

Heart, 278 

XVIII. 

The Grounds and Limits of Spiritual Authority, . 292 

XIX. 

The Change of Death, 311 

XX. 

Retrospect and Anticipation (Delivered December 29th, 

1850,) 328 



DISCOURSES. 



i. 

SPIRITUAL HUNGER AND THIRST. 

Amos, viii. 11, 12. 

'* Behold, the days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a 
famine in the land, not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but 
of hearing the words of the Lord : 

" And they shall wander from sea to sea, and from the north even 
to the east ; they shall run to and fro to seek the word of the Lord, 
and shall not find it." 

In the childhood of the human race, Religion is 
a spontaneous sentiment and intuitive perception in 
which, as in a surrounding atmosphere, the mind un- 
consciously draws its breath and has its being. In 
the broad sunlight and the drifting cloud — in the 
roar of cataracts and the roll of thunder — in the fit- 
ful whisperings of the forest-trees and in the monot- 
onous dash of the surge on the ocean-beach — the 
tenant of the primeval wilderness recognised a pre- 
sence and a power which thrilled and awed his soul, 
and overwhelmed him with emotions that are the 
germ of adoration and worship. Such is the origin 
2 



10 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

of a natural piety. It is the mind's instinctive ac- 
knowledgment of a kindred spirit in the ontward 
universe. It is not the product of reasoning, for it 
is found strong and active, where the faculty of rea- 
soning is hardly developed : but it lies deeply im- 
bedded in those primitive tendencies of our nature, 
which all reasoning tacitly assumes and acts upon. 
Here is the hidden fount of Faith, which must gush 
up within the man, and cannot flow into him from 
without. It is the interior sentiment which all reli- 
gious teachers must appeal to and awaken, or their 
instructions will remain simple formulas— a mere 
rind of words without any core of vitality. It is the 
material, out of which the domestic affections, the 
moral sense, and the usages of society, blending with 
the influences of external nature and stimulated by 
the inspirations of holy men and prophets — have 
elaborated the various religious systems that have 
ever existed in intimate union with civilisation — 
strengthening it with an energy of good, so long as 
any genuine faith subsisted at the heart of them — 
but withering, as soon as faith was gone, into hollow 
observances and senseless dogmas, the retreats of 
hypocrisy and corruption, prolific only of delusions 
that poison and cramp the soul. It has been the 
problem of ages — not yet completely solved — how 
to uphold this primitive faith — this faith in spiritual 
realities and omnipresent mind — in free and living 
harmony with the irresistible conclusions of science 
and the encroaching influences of material wealth. 

All our instinctive tendencies become in time 
the subject of reflection and analysis— the religious 



SPIRITUAL HUNGER AND THIRST. 



11 



among the rest. This power of self-observation is 
the privilege of man ; but it has its inconveniences 
as well as its advantages. Reason is an instrument 
confided to our discretionary use. It is long before 
we learn to handle it wisely, or perceive the limits 
within which it can be profitably employed. If we 
ask for proofs which the nature of the subject does 
not admit, we plunge into helpless scepticism. If 
we insist on rendering logically clear, that which 
from its very infinity eludes the grasp of a finite in- 
tellect, we only thicken the natural darkness which 
envelopes us. If we attempt to determine that, 
which from the conditions of the case is indetermi- 
nable — we sow the seeds of endless subtleties which 
choke the mind instead of fructifying it. If we aim 
at producing unity of opinion, where variety of con- 
ception is inevitable — we necessitate the existence of 
sects, whose interminable warfare diversifies the 
forms of error without multiplying in an equal de- 
gree the chances of truth. These mistakes have been 
committed age after age by the religious mind. We 
have overlooked the primitiveness and superiority to 
all logical proof, of that fundamental feeling, out of 
which faith in a ruling mind and a divine govern- 
ment, is naturally evolved in the development of the 
human faculties ; while the secondary doctrines con- 
structed on this hidden basis by the activity of the 
speculative intellect, have been assailed and defended 
on grounds equally unsatisfactory, because not re- 
duced to those primary data whence faith has its 
origin and where only conviction finds its ultimate 
repose. From this misdirection of inquiry, religious 



12 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

controversy becomes, as it proceeds, predominantly 
intellectual, and retreats at every step further and 
further from the inner source of Faith, ont of which 
all vital results must issue. The devout fervour 
which was so strong in the early stages of the reli- 
gious life — waxes faint and chill. The streams of 
inspiration which once bathed the soul in a flood of 
holy joy — run low, and leave it arid and barren. 
Dry and intellectual natures, nnable to behold any 
vital principle at work, begin to look on all theologi- 
cal questions as thorny disputes about words, and 
yielding to the reactionary impulse of their time, 
turn away with absolute indifference from Religion 
itself. 

Collaterally with this inner decline of the reli- 
gious life, it will often happen, that either the sciences 
of pure intellect, or such as investigate the proper- 
ties of matter, with the arts that are founded on 
them — receive extraordinary stimulus, and make 
rapid progress ; and in both directions draw away 
the strength of thought from those spiritual elements 
of humanity, in the profound consciousness and 
earnest culture of which Religion finds its nourish- 
ment and vigour. The accumulation of riches — the 
taste for luxury — the sense of elegance — the spirit of 
commercial enterprise — so constantly associated with 
great scientific developments, and productive, like 
them, of many virtues — have also the effect of weak- 
ening for a time the spiritual tendencies and aspira- 
tions of the soul. The high tone of ancient reve- 
rence is lowered. Self becomes too predominant in 
human aims. The ambition of personal distinction 



SPIRITUAL HUNGER AND THIRST. 



13 



and social elevation takes the place of faith and a 
simple purpose of duty, as the guiding impulse of 
multitudes. Devout surrender of the heart to God 
is overpowered by the lust of human sympathy. 
Clouds of gold, rich, palpable and gorgeous, curtain 
round this little life of earth, and shut out the view 
of that distant shore, deep-bosomed in eternity — to 
which the immortal spirit, when these pageantries 
are all dissolved, must take its silent and mysterious 
way. 

Meanwhile, that great truth of Scripture retains 
all its force — 'Man cannot live by bread alone.' 
Neither the solicitudes of wealth nor the fascinations 
of voluptuousness can always banish the thought of 
that dread Infinitude, in which as in a fathomless 
ocean our atom of conscious being finds itself plunged. 
It is a sure sign of the indestructible root of Re- 
ligion in our nature, that man is unable for any 
considerable period to subsist without it. He may 
profess infidelity, but a secret faith is gnawing at his 
heart. He may give himself up to the world, and 
laugh at all religious systems ; but ever and anon 
passing moods of inexplicable sadness will warn him, 
that he wants the solace of an inward peace. Through 
the veil which he has drawn over his mind, strange 
gleams of light will at times break in, and startle 
his fatal repose. He will be conscious of a va- 
cuity which outward things do not fill. In the ab- 
sence of faith, he will be the prey of a mysterious 
disquietude and unaccountable apprehensions. If 
he be of a reflective turn— in the vast silence of a 
speechless Universe he will feel himself lonely and 



14 CHKISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

desolate — terrified at the solitudes which stretch 
around him on every side into boundless space. Yea, 
there are moments when he will become a worship- 
per in spite of himself. Alone among the hills, with 
their solemn stillness floating round him- — or as he 
marks from the mountain-side the calm glory of the 
sun sinking down into a flood of ocean-light — he will 
recognise the invisible Presence that consecrates the 
universe, and the yearning for sympathy will burst 
in unbidden accents from his lips. fi Thou wondrous 
Unknown' — he will exclaim — c tell me, what Thou 
art. Answer the earnest questionings of my spirit. 
Remove the film that hath hidden Thee from the 
eyes of my soul. Let me embrace Thee as a kindred 
Spirit — not unconscious of thy creature's aspirations, 
nor spurning the trustful heart that seeks its peace 
in Thee.' 

Periods of indifference and scepticism are fol- 
lowed at length, through that conservative re-action 
which controls human affairs, by a revival of reli- 
gious interest and fervour. But the change does not 
take place at once, nor can it be artificially accele- 
rated. The earlier ties which bound men to faith 
and duty, have been dissolved. They are out of 
harmony with themselves and with the world. They 
experience a want which they know not how to sup- 
ply.. They begin to regret the faith which cheered 
and guided their simpler forefathers ; and many 
would fain throw themselves back into it, if they 
could. This, however, cannot be. The solutions of 
one age do not meet the difficulties which perplex 
another. Life has lapsed once more into a moral 



SPIRITUAL HUNGER AND THIRST. 15 

and spiritual chaos — and needs some higher influ- 
ence to unravel its intricacies, and draw out its latent 
tendencies, and direct its vague aspirations. Men 
are suffering from a spiritual famine, and catch ea- 
gerly at every semblance of spiritual food. They 
languish for the word of God ; they run to and fro 
to seek it, and cannot find it. This is a state of 
things which occurs at intervals in all civilised com- 
munities. The language of the prophet in the text 
refers immediately to the effects of protracted wick- 
edness and infidelity in the latter days of the Israel- 
ii sh kingdom — now turning again in quest of a faith 
which could not be found, because men's iniquities 
had blocked up the access to it. But it is a repre- 
sentation applicable to the corresponding period of 
every human history. It describes a want which at 
this day is felt throughout society — the craving after 
spiritual rest and contentment — going up and down 
the earth in search of it, without knowing where to 
look for it, or how it is to be obtained. ' Behold, the 
days come, saith the Lord God, that I will send a 
famine in the land, not a famine of bread nor a 
thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the 
Lord : And they shall wander from sea to sea, and 
from the north even to the east ; they shall run to 
and fro to seek the word of the Lord, and shall not 
find it.' 

The present age, though deficient in clear, defi- 
nite and stable faith, can hardly be called an irreli- 
gious age. It is wholly unlike the latter half of the 
last century. It has no contempt for religion as 
such. It makes no war on its existing forms. It 



16 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



tolerates all which give evidence of an indwelling 
spirit of earnestness and sincerity. It will not ac- 
cept the impressions of sense as the only possible 
realities. Its tendencies are rather towards mysti- 
cism than materialism. It is in quest of something 
which it cannot find. There is an affection, as yet 
uncertain of its object. There is an appetite, but 
without food which it can relish or digest. It is a 
spirit of hungering and thirsting for the Word of 
God. From every side comes forth the cry — 4 Who 
will show us any good V In its willingness to admit 
every plausible show of truth — in its eclectic and 
conciliatory tendency (for this is its tendency, despite 
the counteracting efforts of hierarchies) — our age has 
some resemblance to the commencement of the Chris- 
tian era, when the dissolution of old faiths had broken 
down the former barriers of opinion, and opened a 
free passage to many a disordered soul, for the re- 
storative influences of the Gospel. 

Yarious are the expedients of unsettled minds, to 
still this inward craving for peace. — To and fro they 
go in all directions, like the troubled spirit of the 
wilderness, seeking rest and finding none. — Some 
imaginative natures fondly retreat into the past. 
There they recognise a world of faith, and think they 
can make it their own. — Reverently they shake off the 
dust from old dogmas and old usages ; and dragging 
them out of their dark retreats, set them up amidst 
the brilliant novelties which the sharp light of modern 
science shines upon, and expect by the mere contrast 
of their antique and mouldering aspect, to inspire 
again the worship and the trust of which they were 



SPIRITUAL HUNGER AND THIRST. 17 

once the object. And doubtless under these old 
forms there was hidden in their day a spirit of divine 
beauty and immortal life. — But of what avail is the 
corpse, when the breath has gone out of it ? 6 Why 
seek we the living among the dead V It is the risen 
Jesus that we long to behold — not the cold, sepul- 
chral stone that received his bier, nor the cerecloths 
that wrapped his mortal clay. — ~No authority is 
lodged with the past, but what comes from princi- 
ples that abide with us equally in the present, and 
in ever-changing forms will attend the human race 
through all the phases of its destined development. 
Forms wither and pass away ; but principles en- 
dure. — We have done little in evoking the vanished 
form from the grave, if the conviction that once 
dwelt in it and gave it vitality, cannot be breathed 
into it anew. 

Others take up some fashionable philosophy, and 
try to compound a religion out of its doctrines. But 
no purely intellectual process can generate a faith. — 
We cannot lay down a plan of observation to detect 
a religion, and coolly await the result. Religion is 
no dim star hidden in the depths of speculation, of 
which when we suspect the quarter, we can calcu- 
late the attractions and predict the place. — It is a 
light, native to the soul, and must arise on us within, 
if it arise at all. — If such faith as we have, be genu- 
ine — and if the philosophy that we follow, have in 
reference to man's nature, any truth at all — so far 
as religion and philosophy can properly intermix, 
they will unite of themselves without any compul- 
sion from us. All our faculties and affections work 
2* 



18 CHKISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

in perfect harmony, when they healthfully develope 
themselves, and one is not allowed to tyrannize over 
the rest. 

Some again throw themselves into the fervours 
of fanatical excitement ; dissolve reason in dreams 
and ecstacies ; and exhibit to the contemptuous pity 
of sounder minds, the revolting phenomena of fakirs 
and schamans. — Some scrupulously tie down their 
belief to a literal acceptance of the written word ; 
translate the history and literature of ancient Pales- 
tine into a modern fact ; and waste their spiritual 
strength in fruitless efforts to accomplish the impos- 
sible and reconcile contradictions. — Others of a 
freer spirit have recourse to eclecticism ; and picking 
out of all religious systems, whatever they like best 
and think most true, make up a patchwork of faith ? 
harmonized by no strong pervading hue of indivi- 
dual conviction — at peace with all, but sympathiz- 
ing profoundly with none. — Others nutter about in a 
thin atmosphere of hazy sentimentality, through 
which they see nothing clearly, though not without 
some perception of the cheering warmth of the Source 
of Day. 

Such endeavours to lay hold of Religion are often 
made with sincerity; but they do not satisfy the 
conditions of the case, and cannot issue in a perfect 
peace. — Neither antiquity, nor philosophy, nor fa- 
naticism, nor mere scriptural] sm, nor eclecticism, nor 
mystic sentimentality — are Religion : they may af- 
ford an access to it, but they are not Religion itself. 
What course, then, must we take, to gain and secure 
this precious good ? — We must abandon all artificial 



SPIRITUAL HUNGER AND THIRST. 



19 



expedients to force a faith. — We must submit our- 
selves to the order, indicated by Providence and 
displayed in the manifold experiences recorded by 
Scripture. — Every one must, in the first instance, 
go back to his own soul. There he may have direct 
communion with God. There is the source and cen- 
tre of all spiritual vitality. There only he can break 
up the living fountain of Religion. Three simple 
rules furnish our best guidance. 

First, be true to yourself. Look through your 
nature with the single eye of conscience. Disguise 
no evil that you find lurking there. — Own it for 
what it is, and resolve to expel it. In aspiration and 
endeavour aim at the highest good which you can 
conceive ; however alien to many tendencies yet un- 
subdued and strong, your unperverted judgment 
will tell you, that it is the proper end and true glory 
of your being. Purified by this moral effort, call 
out into action those first principles of faith which 
you will find at the bottom of your soul — buried it 
may be under the rubbish- of human systems — vast 
heaps of theological conventionalism or the grosser 
accumulations of philosophical sophistries. Be not 
anxious, impatient, over-inquisitive — but thoughtful, 
serious, calm. — Be still, and wait for God. Expect 
Him, and at his own time He will come to you. All 
is not error in the quietism inculcated by some 
religious writers. Bustle, excitement, scrupulous 
questionings about words and phrases, disperse the 
gathering elements of a religious life, and repel the 
silent affluxes of the Spirit of God. Feel yourself in 
the mysterious embrace of a Father's love. — In your 



20 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

solitary wanderings — in the secret communings of 
your heart — when you meditate on your bed in the 
night-watches — cherish the thought which will often 
arise within you then, that man could not be happy 
in the consciousness of perfect isolation — that he was 
not designed for one moment to live alone — that he 
dwells in the presence of a Spirit with which his own 
spirit has affinities, and may at all times and in all 
places have intercourse. — In the light of beauty that 
floats over the changing aspects of the material uni- 
verse — in the grand interpreting thought which per- 
vades the broken story of the ages, and translates it 
into coherency — in the spirit which comes to you from 
the smiles of gladness and the tears of sorrow, and 
softens your heart in genial sympathy with human 
weal and human woe — in the interchange of ideas 
which kindles enthusiasm, and draws a higher mean- 
ing and purpose out of life — acknowledge realities 
which transcend the limits of sense — own a spiritual 
world, whose mysteries encompass you on every 
side, by whose laws you are bound, and in whose is- 
sues of endless unfolding you are yourself perhaps 
destined to be involved. Admit these feelings — 
which at times with more or less power visit all 
men ; let them have free and unquestioned passage 
through your soul ; and at length settle quietly on 
its silent depths : — and you will have begun the re- 
ligious life ; you will have prepared and sj)read the 
soil ; and the seed which you cast into it, will hence- 
forth grow. 

Secondly, cultivate the domestic and social affec- 
tions. These will give richness and strength to the 



SPIRITUAL HUNGER AND THIRST. 



21 



finer elements of religions veneration, and take a 
higher purity from it in return. Selfishness is the 
poison of a true devotion : love is its only fitting nu- 
triment. From the bosom of our homes ascends that 
ineffable sentiment which finds its loftiest object in 
God, and its final rest in Heaven. Not in the cells 
of anchorites or the joyless celibacy of the priest — 
but in the cheerful stir of the family life — in the gen- 
erous charities which bind neighbours and fellow- 
citizens in one wide community of interest and en- 
deavour — must we seek the discipline of that health- 
ful piety which is the blessing and the consecration 
of our earthly lot. Bound to others by endless ties 
of affection and sympathy, our being is made one 
with theirs : and their joys and sorrows — their suc- 
cesses and misfortunes — their sicknesses and trials — 
their births, their marriages, their deaths — pervade 
life with thrilling and ceaseless interest, and far more 
than any thing which touches ourselves alone, keep 
up strong and active within us the essential feelings 
of Religion. The heart, which glows with human 
charities, cannot in its depths be indevoufc. 

Thirdly, give yourself earnestly to duty. Scep- 
ticism often has its source in the torpor of the active 
powers. The dreamer comes at length almost to 
doubt his own existence. Resolve to work out faith- 
fully what you perceive to be the Sovereign will, 
and a more lively sense of God's presence will spring 
up within you. You will taste His blessing, and 
feel His strength ; and your supplications for guid- 
ance, sustained by renewed endeavours to do right, 
will bring an answer of quiet trust and steadfast 



22 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

faith to your heart. There is a fierce conflict of good 
and evil throughout the universe ; but good is in the 
ascendant, and must triumph at last. It is the vital 
principle of things, in which we believe God to be 
more immediately present and operative. Ally 
yourself with this principle. Put yourself into har- 
mony with the grand order of Divine Providence. 
Grapple with evil in all its forms. Make war with 
all your energies, on falsehood, ignorance, oppres- 
sion and vice. Uphold against them the cause of 
truth, and freedom, and justice, and humanity. 
Throw yourself heartily into this great and noble 
warfare — never doubting to what issue it must 
come : — and every cloud of distrust and fear that 
may have darkened for a moment over your mind, 
will pass away ; you will now see all things plain in 
the light of God ; you will be strong in that faith 
which gives man a giant's power for the achieve- 
ment of the highest good. 

Thus attuned by inward and outward discipline 
to the true feeling of Religion — the influences of 
holy men and prophets will now tell with marked 
effect on the spiritual condition of your soul. Your 
own experience will give a meaning to their words, 
which before you could not comprehend. The mys- 
tic chain is now laid, along which the life of God 
may pass from some gifted spirit, richly charged 
with its power and its truth, into your spirit which 
still feels its deficiencies and craves to have them 
supplied. The religious life which you have called 
forth by your own efforts, constitutes the inward re- 
velation of the Divine Word ; and this is a condi- 



SPIRITUAL HUNGER AND THEKST. 



23 



tion of outward revelation, though it may not super- 
sede it. Every wise man's instruction and every 
good man's example feeds it with a holy oil, and 
causes it to send up a "brighter flame. 

But the completest embodiment of a Divine 
Word in its external manifestation, — is that Holy 
Record, unfolding the progressive development of 
a monotheistic faith — which exhibits at its point of 
culmination, the unparalleled reality of a sinless 
Manhood in perfect harmony with God. Here is a 
stimulus, to rouse the lowest depths, and take in the 
whole compass, of the religious principle in man. 
Here is an Ideal, to shape its course and attract its 
aspirations. From this realisation of a perfect Hu- 
manity goes forth to every believing soul, the trans- 
forming influence through which it is fashioned into 
the likeness of Christ and God, and becomes a par- 
taker of that divine nature whose home is in Hea- 
ven. Thus the inward and the outward Word co- 
alesce, and furnish mutual evidence of a common 
origin from God. The spirit of Christ shining 
through the outward Word, pours his own strength 
and fulness into the inward Word, and brings it out 
in clearer and brighter characters on the tablets of 
the individual heart : while the inward Word, thus 
quickened into a distincter consciousness, and with 
firmer reliance on its intuitive perceptions, becomes 
a sure guide for the mind through the tangled maze 
of Scripture lore, — enabling it at once to single out 
and appropriate amidst the perplexing redundancy 
of national legend and ancient song, of popular in- 
struction and prophetic enthusiasm — those great 



24 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

principles which contain the eternal truth of God — 
that bread of life and those waters of salvation, 
which can alone appease the hunger and thirst of 
man's immortal soul. 



II. 



MAN'S ASCENT TO GOD. 
James, iv. 8. 

" Draw nigh unto God, and He will draw nigh unto you." 

Physically — we cannot separate ourselves from 
God; for in the language of the psalmist, He 'has 
beset us behind and before, and laid his hand upon 
us ;' and in the still more decided words of Paul, 
' in Him we live and move and have our being.' 
Morally — we feel ourselves at an infinite distance 
from Him : an impassable gulf seems to lie be- 
tween Him and us. Scripture in various forms 
gives utterance to this solemn consciousness of every 
religious mind, — 6 God dwells in light which no 
man can approach unto.' (1 Tim. iv. 16.) The 
greatest prophet cannot 'see Him, and live.' (Exod. 
xxxiii. 20.) Even Abraham, the father of the faith- 
ful — distinguished as the friend of God — thought it 
a presumption, in the days of patriarchal commu- 
nion, that he ' who was but dust and ashes, should 
have taken upon him to speak unto the Lord.' 
(Gen. xviii. 27.) 

If we rest in the first of these views, and confine 
our thoughts to the fixed and uniform order of phe- 
nomena which act on the senses — we not only see 
God m all things — which is a Scriptural idea — but 



26 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

we are borne unconsciously to a conclusion which goes 
beyond it ; we identify all things with God, and 
look upon ourselves as a part of Him. If we add 
to this view, the profounder consciousness of our 
spiritual activity and personal responsibility, which 
is its needful complement — and which has a yet 
stronger expression in Scripture — the latter infer- 
ence is checked, for we then recognise all things — 
ourselves included — as dependent on God, yet dis- 
tinct from Him — subsisting indeed through his 
ever-present energy, but under such conditions of 
limitation, as must separate by an insurmountable 
barrier every thing created from the absolute per- 
fection of his own Infinitude. In tracing to its le- 
gitimate consequences the idea of fundamental 
power from these opposite data, we reach the point 
of vital separation between the pantheistic and the 
monotheistic conception of the universe. A differ- 
ent interpretation of the same phenomena, will 
cause a momentous difference in the conclusion. 
According as we take consciousness, intelligence, 
will — in one word — Spirit — to be only the last re- 
sult of the progressive development of things, or to 
be itself, in its absolute state, the source and regulat- 
ing principle of the entire system — the most recent 
effect in the order of creation, or the fundamental 
agency which underlies all creation's energies and 
manifestations — we lapse into virtual atheism, or 
we come to a clear acknowledgment of the Living 
God. 

A vital question, then, is involved in the right 
apprehension of what is called the personality of 



man's ascent to god. 



God. This doctrine, truly conceived, stands in the 
central point, from which opinion has constantly 
diverged, on one hand, into anthropomorphism which 
degrades the Almighty into a mere exaggeration of 
human passions and infirmities — and, on the other, 
into pantheism which evaporates Deity into an ab- 
straction, or reduces it to an unintelligent and 
incomprehensible force. Each of these extreme ten- 
dencies is at war with a healthy reason, and destruc- 
tive of genuine religion : but we must not on that ac- 
count include in indiscriminating censure, all the in- 
dividuals who may from various causes have been 
more or less carried away by them. All errors that 
have had extensive currency among earnest and 
thoughtful men, are allied to some truth, and were 
originally designed to correct some excess or meet 
some want of the spiritual nature.* In the action 
and re-action which, mark the progress of ideas, 
doctrines mischievous in their remoter consequences, 
may help to qualify too strong a tendency in the 
opposite direction, and so adjust the final balance 
of opinion. Meanwhile, the calm and dispassionate 
mind, observing how these divergencies successively 
compensate each other, is confirmed in its attach- 
ment to the great central truths whose fixed in- 
fluence and controlling attraction are equally indi- 
cated by them all. In pronouncing judgment, 

* ' Der Irrthum nirgend an und fur sich ist, sondern irnmer nur 
an dem wahren, und er nicht eher vollkomm en verstanden warden ist, 
bis Man seinen Zusamtnenhang mit der Wahrheit, und das wahre 
woran er haftet, gefunden hat.' — Schleiermacher, Christliche Claube. 
I. § 7.3. 



28 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

therefore, on an individual, it is not fair to allege 
even the undeniable consequences of his opinions, if 
we have reason to think, that he did not anticipate 
them. We must ask what his Past had been — and 
what his Present was : in them we can often find 
the determining impulse of a man's peculiar opinions. 
Perhaps he was so absorbed by the desire of coun- 
teracting evils and errors, which he daily felt and 
saw in strong operation around him, — that he hardly 
carried forward his thoughts into the Future at all. 
The impassioned anthropomorphism which mingled 
such exciting elements with the religious agency of 
Zinzendorf and Wesley — is entitled at least to a 
lenient construction, when we remember the cold 
and powerless rationalism which it strove to over- 
come. Nor again is it surprising, that men so pro- 
foundly meditative as Spinoza — so ardent in specula- 
tion as Lessing — so refined, subtile and comprehen- 
sive as Schleierinacher — disgusted with the gross and 
heavy orthodoxy of their clay, and earnestly aspiring 
after a higher spirituality — should have rarefied their 
conception of God, till substance and vitality — all 
that we can realise to ourselves as a Living Person- 
ality — vanished away. It is impossible to doubt the 
pious feeling and serious purpose of all these men. 
Such considerations, however, should not blind us 
to the pernicious tendency of errors which their ge- 
nius and virtues have invested with a kind of moral 
respectability. Only let us spare the persons, while 
we attack the thing. 

We put ourselves in the right position for appre- 
hending the idea of the Divine Personality, when we 



man's ascent to god. 



29 



set out from the first and nearest of all realities — 
our own spiritual consciousness — and think of God, 
as a kindred nature — a Conscious Mind. All that we 
mean by the Personality of God, is included in an 
adequate conception of Mind. From Mind we ac- 
quire the notions of will, power, origination. But 
mere power left to itself would be a lawless and de- 
structive force. From an inherent necessity, there- 
fore, in mental action, we are compelled to assume 
the co-existence with Power, of other attributes to 
impel and guide it. These we express by the terms 
— Goodness and Wisdom — which embrace together 
all the moral and all the intellectual perfections of 
the Sovereign Spirit. As we are conscious, that our 
own errors and vices proceed from passions, infirmi- 
ties and fears which are incidental to our limited 
nature, but from which He whose nature is without 
limit, must be free — we hesitate not to speak of God 
as absolutely without imperfection, and we ascribe 
to Him boundless Power, unerring Wisdom, infinite 
Love. These three great attributes of Power, Wis- 
dom, Goodness, present themselves to us as necessary 
conditions of the existence and operations of the 
highest Mind — -the absolute Being. Assume one of 
these attributes, and it will involve the co-existence 
of the other two. Admit flaw or deficiency in any 
one, and it will disturb its relations with the rest, 
and draw after it a dissolution of that harmony and 
self-consistency of action which is the basis of our 
reliance on the order and perpetuity of the universe. 

Among the powers appertaining to the unsearch- 
able essence of God, we must include that of limiting 



30 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

the outgoings of his own creative energy — of arrang- 
ing and distributing creation in endless gradations of 
life and faculty — of imparting to the race which he has 
placed at the head of the visible scale, some portion 
of his own spiritual consciousness and freedom — and 
of allowing them within certain bounds, through the 
mysterious endowment of will, to act in independence 
of Himself. Within these bounds lies the choice of 
Right and Wrong — with its effects on the moral 
condition of the agent — and the liberty implied in 
that choice, of voluntarily approximating to God or 
withdrawing from Him. It is in this highest sphere 
of our existence, where we are conscious of moral 
distinctions and a spontaneous reverence for what is 
just and true — that our minds attain the deepest con- 
viction of the Personality of God — that we own Him, 
as a real Being — a living Presence — a sympathising 
Father and Friend. Our spirits — in this their holi- 
est and most elevated mood — crave intercourse with 
a kindred Spirit — and believe, it is granted them. 
They repel it as an impossibility which their inmost 
nature disavows — that at this most advanced point 
of their ever- unfolding being, on the dim confines of 
visible and perishing things, they should at length 
find themselves lonely and forsaken — placed fore- 
most among creatures, only to feel a more hopeless 
desolation — with no voice from the infinite Silence, 
to answer their imploring cries — no breath of respon- 
sive Love, to hush the throbbings of the expectant 
heart and soothe its intense yearnings after sympa- 
thy — no witness of a Parent Mind, to which a 
child's affections may cling, and to which a child's 



man's ascent to god. 



31 



weakness and ignorance may trust itself, in the dread 
uncertainty which overhangs the Future and the 
Unseen. 

The apostolic exhortation, c Draw nigh unto God,' 
implies, that in our natural state and at the com- 
mencement of our moral career, we are at a distance 
from God — and that to approach Him depends on our 
own volition and effort. This distance indeed varies 
in different individuals. The innocent simplicity of 
childhood would seem to lie in immediate conti- 
guity with the Spirit of God. Yet there are often 
inherent tendencies to evil, which show themselves 
from the first in the human being. Often too the 
original purity is soiled and darkened by appetite and 
selfishness which interpose a shade before the coun- 
tenance of God, and render a restorative process 
necessary to bring back the clear consciousness of 
his benignant presence. In every case communion 
with God is not a simple gift of nature, but the re- 
ward and blessing of spiritual culture and devoted- 
ness. Our moral remoteness from God, and the ne- 
cessity of holiness to approach Him — is the great 
idea which pervades Scripture from beginning to 
end, and so broadly distinguishes it from the preva- 
lent systems of philosophy. Thus placed by nature, 
while we are under the dominion of sense, and mere- 
ly follow our instinctive impulses, at a great distance 
from the Most High — how are we to obey the apos- 
tles's injunction, and begin the free movement of 
our minds towards God ? To trace this movement, 
is to trace the origin and progress of the religious 
life — that secret but fruitful intercourse which the 



32 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

experience of thousands attests may subsist between 
the Spirit of God and the soul of Man. In the pre- 
sent discourse I shall speak of that part only of the 
process which relates to Man — of his personal, vo- 
luntary efforts to attain to God, and hold converse 
with Him. 

(1.) The first step towards God originates in a 
deepened sense of the moral worth and high re- 
sponsibilities of Man's life. The religion of chil- 
dren, as of some uncultivated and simple tribes, 
consists in a vague wonder and awe, intermingled 
with a diffusive feeling of gratitude and trust. They 
are taught perhaps to blend the idea of God with 
that of duty ; but the association is not in general 
very vivid, till sorrow or death, or the consequences 
of heedless transgression, have awakened the mind 
to profounder reflection on the destination of human- 
ity. While life flows on— in the main innocent and 
happy — the moral consciousness is tranquil, but it 
is not quick and operative. Such, however, can 
rarely be for any length of time, the condition of a 
dweller on earth. Sorrows and trials are too thick- 
ly spread — misfortune and disappointment reach us 
through too many avenues — to leave any one many 
years undisturbed by the importunate question — 
4 Why am I here ? and what have I to do V An 
ideal gradually shapes itself before every reflective 
mind, of Man's function and duty, which his actual 
performances and even his habitual aims fall im- 
measurably below, and the comparison of which 
with the reality, fills him with grief and shame. 
Perhaps some unwonted sin deepens the feeling of 



man's ascent to god. 33 

disparity between what he is, and what he ought to 
be — rouses him to a sense of danger — and puts him 
on efforts that he never made before. Perhaps he 
is awakened without passing through this ordeal of 
personal humiliation. He is conscious of powers 
that have never yet been adequately exerted, or finds 
himself possessed of opportunities which he has hith- 
erto failed to improve. He looks around on a world 
languishing in darkness, sin and woe — yet teeming 
on every hand with seeds of undeveloped good, 
which only ask for patient and zealous culture, to 
ripen into widespread blessings for mankind. Can 
he linger in sloth and apathy, with no earnest aim 
or chosen work, while such solemn calls are made 
upon him ? His self-reproach may be less for what 
he has — than for what he has not — done. But in 
this upbraiding sense of deficiency lies the hid- 
den source of future strength. By whatever con- 
sciousness produced, whether of positive wrong or 
of defective goodness — and however designated in 
the copious nomenclature of Religion — conversion, 
seriousness, new birth, conviction of sin, or self-ded- 
ication to the truth — in this strong and clear persua- 
sion of a moral purpose in existence, and in the 
resolute sacrifice of all worldly, selfish and carnal 
impulses that are at war with it — the true life of 
God in the human soul has its origin : and no one 
probably ever attained to eminence in virtue and re- 
ligious wisdom, ever rose above the standard moral- 
ity of his age, or wrought any lasting good for man- 
kind as a philanthropist and a reformer — whose char^ 
acter had not passed through some such crisis as this. 
3 



34 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

For with all states of mind which involve the birth 
of a new and higher life — the idea of a Divine In- 
spector and Judge is deeply interfused. It is then 
that we hear His voice in our inmost souls, calling 
on us to come and serve Him. It is then that we 
own His presence in every deepened conviction and 
strengthened purpose, andin the solemn awe of reli- 
gion overshadowing ourdaily steps. It is then that 
we are penetrated by the irresistible belief, glancing 
like heaven's lightning through the soul, that all 
things must work together for certain good, so long 
as we continue in free and unconditional self-surren- 
der to His service. And all these influences blend- 
ing into one, and acting with a single impulse on 
the mind, create the force which bursts the bondage 
of former habit and sets the bias of the character in 
a new direction. The sentiments which possess the 
soul, on the first experience of this change — are a 
grave and earnest sorrowfulness — humiliation before 
God — tenderness of heart — fervent prayer — moral 
watchfulness. The soul for the time is broken and 
cast down, and waits for encouragement to look up 
and proceed. Such is the natural expression of this 
first stage of the religious life. We must not rest in 
it. It is but preliminary. It marks transition. It 
is an effervescence of strong emotion, which must be 
fixed in principle and condensed into habit, or it 
will evaporate and pass away. Some forms of Re- 
ligion, not perceiving this, have taken these transient 
symptoms for the permanent functions of the life 
of God, and striving to arrest it at this point, have 



man's ascent to god. 



35 



converted piety into one long agony of groans and 
tears. 

(2.) The resolution to serve God having been 
made, we come now to the ordering of the ontward 
life and the discipline of the affections in accordance 
with it. The life of God must be deep set in firm 
and steadfast principle, and must be bnilt up and 
fortified on every side by virtuous habit. Habit and 
principle are not indeed the same thing with the 
spirit of Religion ; but they are indispensable con- 
ditions of its secure and continuous existence. They 
define and protect the sphere within which it liyes 
and breathes, and give it free scope to act — exempt 
from constraint and invasion. In this second stage 
of the religious life, the mind is less fettered -by 
anxiety and fear. It has more reliance on itself. It 
feels safer against temptation and sin. It has more 
confidence towards God, and greater freedom in 
devotion. It has less of excitement and rapture — 
fewer of the deep convulsive struggles of faith and 
conscience, which marked its opening course — but 
a more serene and habitual consciousness of the di- 
vine presence and of moral responsibility. This pas- 
sage from the first to the second stage of the reli- 
gious life, is the most critical period in the spiritual 
history of the Soul. It furnishes the test, whether 
the strong emotions which once agitated it, were 
merely a sudden gust that swept over it and passed 
away, or the harbingers of deep and radical change. 
The emotions, when they came, might be genuine. 
But did they last? Thousands have meant well, 
and striven for a time after the life of God. Alas ! 



36 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

they were open to impressions of every kind ; and 
the latest effaced the first. They wanted fixed re- 
solve, distinct purpose, and the power of self-denial. 
The world was too strong for them. They aban- 
doned prayer, and quitted their hold on God. The 
false lights of ambition and vanity led them astray. 
Snares and temptations beset them, and they fell : — 
and the day that dawned so fair, went down in grief 
and guilt. 

Nor is this the only danger that awaits men in 
the second stage of the religious life. They may 
tarry in this, as others have tarried in the first. 
They may never go on to perfect freedom and peace. 
They may remain entangled in the mere instrumen- 
talities of Keligion ; and without lapsing into vice 
and absolute worldliness, become scrupulous and 
formal. They may tie themselves down to duty, 
and punctiliously fulfil every letter of the outward 
law, without the faith and the love which sanctify 
and gladden the heart. It is of immense import- 
ance to the religious sentiment in this phasis of spi- 
ritual growth, that it should be associated with a ra- 
tional and benevolent theology, which will divest it 
of all narrowness and gloom, and harmonise it with 
the great interests of humanity. For such a theology 
by unfolding a wide and cheerful view of the de- 
signs of Providence, and of man's business and des- 
tination in this terrestrial scene, quickens his onward 
progress, and facilitates the transition to a yet higher 
stage of religious development. 

(3.) Arrived at this, the mind surveys the whole 
world in a religious light, and impregnates every 



man's ascent to god. 



37 



part of life with a religious spirit. In going to God, 
we do not separate ourselves from the world ; for it 
is only through the world — in the very midst of its 
cares, temptations and trials — its active duties, its 
absorbing interests, and its exciting joys — that we 
can rightly draw nigh to God, and hold communion 
with Him — blessing every scene with the conscious- 
ness of his presence, and sanctifying it by cheerful 
obedience to his law. It is the traditional cant of a 
false theology, that Religion and the world are mu- 
tually repugnant. "We should rather say, there can 
be no true Religion without the constant use and 
hearty enjoyment of the world. To the virtuous, 
Heaven is the complement of their life on earth : 
and our own experience must teach us, we should 
be wholly unfit for the exalted occupations and de- 
lights which we believe await us there, without the 
preparatory seasoning and discipline of the stern or 
joyous realities that are thrown around us here. 
Every one at his entrance into life, should look on 
the world, as a field to be cultivated and a garden 
to be enjoyed. All that he needs, is the religious 
consecration of mind and heart, to secure as ample 
a return from the one as is necessary for the moral 
purposes of existence, and to gather a rich abun- 
dance of the sweetest satisfactions from the other. 
He should ask himself, as the wide and varied pros- 
pect opens round him — ' What am I fit for ? and 
why have I been placed where I am V — And when 
the answer comes to him from his own sincere and 
earnest heart, he should recognise his mission as 



38 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

from God, and religiously give lip all his powers to 
fulfil it well. 

"We need a wider interpretation of man's relig- 
ious vocation in this life. It lies, I take it, in the 
zealous culture of his specific gift and entrusted 
talent, whatever that may be — according to his dis- 
cernment of the Divine law. As the world is now 
constituted, men's minds are often forced down by 
circumstances into spheres of action, for which in- 
clination and aptitude equally unfit them. And 
while this is so, patient submission and an effort to 
make the best of what is unalterable — are plain dic- 
tates of prudence and duty. A faithful and ener- 
getic mind will master circumstances. But as edu- 
cation is diffused and society developes itself, more 
choice of object will be offered to various talents : 
and even now, as far as we can, we should endeavour 
to put men and women to the task for which nature 
evidently intended them. More strongly marked 
character will be thus produced in individuals ; and 
the infinite riches and beauty, with the true use and 
enjoyment of this world, will become more apparent 
to every mind. "We may promote this salutary 
change, by dissipating the mistaken feeling which is 
now associated with the word respectability. Every 
social function is respectable, which fills its proper 
place, is exercised in the right spirit, and wields its 
appropriate talent. All things are parts of one 
great whole, and express together the benignant 
harmony of the Spirit of God. Whatever stimu- 
lates and gratifies a rational curiosity, though it 
yield no direct practical result — whatever awakens 



man's ascent to god. 



39 



taste and sentiment, or throws a grace over the 
coarser realities of life, if cultivated in a holy and 
loving spirit — is as solid a good to mankind, as the 
heavy drudgery which heaps up riches year after 
year — and may be as truly religious — may as di- 
rectly take the mind to God — as the mechanical rou- 
tine of a traditional piety, and the cold and listless 
observances which dishonour many a sanctuary. We 
come, through this religious consecration of life, to 
view the entire universe as the dwelling-place of 
God — conversing through nature, history and the 
human mind with Him — and sympathising with the 
filial spirits that He has placed in the midst of it, to 
behold his glory and rejoice in his beneficence. In 
nature we witness the serene reflection of his un- 
changing majesty and almightiness. In history we 
trace the grand results of his moral government, 
combining and accumulating from age to age, and 
interpreting, as they proceed, the great idea of his 
eternal Providence. In the workings of the human 
mind, we observe that He has left men, within cer- 
tain fixed limits, to be their own teachers, and to 
profit by the fruits of their own experience. He has 
thus sanctioned in his own vast plan for the educa- 
tion of the human race, the great principles of self- 
reliance and self-government : yet has guarded the 
order of his creation, by setting bounds to the folly 
and wickedness of man, and through that wonderful 
alchemy which is everywhere at work in the moral 
world, transmuting their effects into means of higher 
good and more effectual instruction. 

(4.) Prepared by the progressive change which 



40 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

feeling, habit and action have undergone in this pro- 
cess of spiritual development, the mind passes on to 
the last and highest stage of the religious life. It 
arrives at the blessed consciousness of co-operating 
with God in the great design of his creation, and of 
being one in purpose and endeavour with Him. This 
consciousness is only intelligible on the supposition 
of man's free agency and partial independence of 
God. It has no meaning in the pantheistic theory. 
If God be always equally near to us, and we are 
equally a part of Him — whether we seek truth or 
falsehood — whether we do good or evil — it is wholly 
irrelevant to our actual condition, to exhort us to 
draw nigh to Him, and seek communion with Him. 
There is no room for the action of the will, and no 
occasion for the exercise of afTection. We cannot be 
nearer to God, and we cannot be more remote ; for 
we are already a portion of his living substance. 

When, however, we believe, that He, the all- 
perfect and ever-blessed Spirit, must always im- 
measurably transcend our improvable but limited 
nature — it is joy unspeakable in our highest moods 
and holiest aspirations — to feel that we can volunta- 
rily draw nigher to Him and speak with Him, — to 
experience the answerings of his love — and to know, 
that if we keep our minds in this heavenward-course, 
we shall approach Him and become more intimate 
with Him through eternity. True union with God 
is the sympathy of our wills, and the co-operation 
of our endeavours, with the benevolent and glorious 
tendencies that pervade his works — the finite work- 
ing with the Infinite — not from mechanical neces- 



man's ascent to god. 



41 



sity, but with spontaneous reverence and love, ac- 
cording to its measure of insight and power — to 
bring forth and realise, wherever human agency ex- 
tends, that ideal of truth and beauty and goodness, 
which glows and dilates in ever brighter and grander 
manifestation on the opening vision of all pure and 
earnest souls, as they climb the upward path to- 
wards higher worlds and the invisible throne of 
God. 

3* 



III. 



GOD'S DESCENT TO MAN. 
James, iv. 8. 

" Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh unto you." 

In the foregoing discourse I illustrated the open- 
ing words of this text, £ Draw nigh unto God' — and 
showed what efforts man could make, to lift himself 
up to God. I have now to speak of the promise 
which accompanies that exhortation ; — 4 God will 
draw nigh unto you.' There will be mutual approxi- 
mation. If you earnestly aspire towards God, God 
will descend to meet your aspirations, and bless 
them with a clearer revelation of Himself. 

An adequate conception of this side of the rela- 
tion, is less within our reach than that of which we 
have already treated. "When we start from Man, we 
have our daily experience to guide us to the truth. 
Our aspirations and our short-comings — our* failures, 
prostrations and revivals — are distinctly mapped out 
in our remembrance ; they are positive facts of con- 
sciousness, and the subject in its whole extent lies 
clearly and steadily exposed to our reflective gaze. 
It is very different, when we reverse the order of 
thought, and set out from the idea of God, and try 
to conceive of his direct action on the human spirit. 
We feel, that we are now approaching a theme, on 



god's descent to man. 



43 



which our knowledge bears an infinitesimal propor- 
tion to our ignorance. We sink beneath the effort 
to grasp it. The nature which we attempt to con- 
tradistinguish from our own, is too vast to be em- 
braced by our thought. Whatever notion we can 
form of its direct and positive agency on our souls, 
is derivable — either from some rare and blessed mo 
ments which have broken in on our ordinary men- 
tal condition with influences beyond ourselves — or 
from the manifold confessions of the devoutest spirits, 
which irreligious men distrust and spurn because 
they have never known a similar experience. But 
if God be a living Spirit— the Parent of free and re- 
sponsible spirits — such a reciprocation of influence 
must subsist between Him and us ; and the more 
we cultivate intercourse with Him, the deeper will 
be our sense of its reality, and the distincter our 
consciousness of His operation on the mind. 

To seize a definite conception and to prevent our 
being lost in vague and fathomless speculation, we 
must confine our attention specially to the moral 
relation which God sustains towards us — as a fact, 
witnessed by our own experience and by that of 
devout men in all ages. At one end at least of this 
relation, we encounter indisputable realities, and 
get hold of truths which no sophistry can west from 
us. If men whose characters are a warrant for their 
sincerity, and whose understandings on every other 
subject bear indubitable marks of soundness and 
vigour — deliberately assure us, that in the highest 
moments of their being, when the soul most fer- 
vently aspires towards God, they have been conscious 



44 CHEISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

of an accession of spirit and life to their moral 
energies, which they had never fonnd any mechani- 
cal effort of self-discipline — any mere volition, how- 
ever earnest and sustained — at all adequate to pro- 
duce — we have an attestation to the reality of the 
Divine agency on the human mind, which cannot 
be questioned without shaking the foundation of the 
largest part of that knowledge, on which in our in 
ter course with one another, we are compelled to rely. 

First of all, then, let us endeavour to apprehend 
distinctly the difference of our relation to God as 
moral beings, and that of creatures which are either 
inanimate and unconscious, or actuated by simple 
instinct alone. Beings of the latter class — that is, 
all beings, so far as our knowledge extends, beside 
ourselves — sustain one uniform and unalterable rela- 
tion towards God. What they were from the first, 
that they still are. They keep their original distance 
from God, which is incapable of either increase or 
diminution. The law of their being has been estab- 
lished once for all, and by that they unchangeably 
abide. There is a part too of Man's nature which 
stands in the same immutable relation towards God 
— subject to the mechanical, chemical and physio- 
logical laws which embrace in one unvarying cycle 
of cause and effect, the whole of the material and 
animal creation. Up to this point, the Divine agency 
has limited itself to a fixed order of manifestation : 
what it is now, we rely on its continuing to be, so 
long as the present universe exists. But above this 
lower part of Man's nature which connects him with 
the laws of matter and the region of simple organ- 



god's descent to man. 



45 



ism — there is a sphere of action into which God has 
infused a portion of his own free energy — a sphere, 
where will begins to operate — that new and myste- 
rious power, which affects human relations with God 
and renders them fluctuating — which can draw up 
the heart into the closest intimacy with its Parent 
Spirit, or throw it off to a distance in which the con- 
sciousness of the relation becomes almost extinct. 

Will is the ruling power in Man ; the functions 
of intellect are its ministers. His worth or his 
worthlessness as a moral agent, must be estimated 
from the habitual attitude of his will. Will, how- 
ever, is not wholly lawless and unconfined. It acts 
within prescribed limits and on fixed conditions. 
There are convictions of which man's mind cannot 
divest itself, and which his will more or less assumes 
in all its resolutions ; though it may sometimes act 
in defiance of them, and by continued inattention, 
make them faint and dim. It is through such con- 
victions, that the Spirit of God has immediate access 
to the human soul. There is, first, the sense of an 
agency external to man's will, and mightier than it — 
in which the belief in a Sovereign Mind — a God — 
has its source. In its essence, this sense is perhaps 
inextinguishable : — but as, on the one hand, it may 
be obscured and weakened to apparent annihilation ; 
so, on the other, through the exercise of reason on 
the order and harmony of visible phenomena, and 
the habitual verification in them of the deeper faith 
which springs from the interior consciousness of mind 
itself, — it is capable of development into the clearest 
and most undoubting conviction. — There is, secondly, 



46 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

the sense of the broad distinction between right and 
wrong — as the subjects of a free choice, to be finally 
appropriated by the will. Whatever actions and 
affections dependent on will, distinguish themselves 
to present apprehension, as fit or unfit to be done 
and cherished under the circumstances given — ex- 
cite in our minds a feeling of approval or disap- 
proval which they cannot lay aside, though in parti- 
cular cases, where self-interest is strongly at work, 
they may attempt to stifle or disguise it. — There is, 
thirdly, a sense of subjection to law — of responsi- 
bility for voluntary acts to a Higher Power — an ap- 
prehension of final retribution, corresponding to the 
moral order of the universe — which cleaves to the 
mind through all the sophistries of scepticism and 
all the shifts and difficulties of a troubled and ad- 
verse life — and in which, down to man's lowest es- 
tate of despairing and hardened unbelief, they who 
have skill to probe the human conscience, may yet 
find undestroyed the seed of a belief in immortality. 
These principles of faith — these tendencies (if we 
may not give them a more positive name) towards a 
recognition of the great spiritual realities of our 
being — are imbedded firm and deep in the bottom 
of every human soul — put there by the hand of God 
himself — landmarks bounding in the dim region of 
our moral agency, which may at times be covered 
over and transgressed, but can never be torn up and 
carried away. 

Such in its essential features is the constitution 
of the nature which is fitted for communion with 
God — which has the promise, if it draw nigh to God, 



god's descent to man. 



47 



that God will draw nigh to it in return. We have 
now to consider, in what way this response of God 
to the aspirations of the human soul, becomes known. 
We discern it in a deeper and tenderer sense of his 
presence and operation, as a living Spirit — first, in 
things fixed by immutable laws and foreign to our- 
selves — and secondly, within the sphere of our per- 
sonal consciousness — in things dependent on our own 
will and effort. When the spiritual eye is opened 
by faith, a new and more glorious world reveals it- 
self. We no longer see in God's workmanship and 
ordinances, a mere combination and arrangement of 
material forms, impelled by dead forces, whose re- 
sults can be calculated by the processes, and ex- 
pressed by the symbols, of science — but through 
them we discern a deeper reality, living and working 
behind — modes of God's own agency, wherein He 
limits and qualifies His exhaustless energies — sub- 
jecting Himself to the restrictions of undeviating 
law, that He may furnish a discipline for the culture 
of finite spirits — and shrouding his glory in a corpo- 
real veil, to spare the weakness of our mental vision. 
God — who in the cold gaze of the philosophic intellect, 
retreats far away into the viewless depths of being, 
and is but a name for some mysterious, inexplicable 
Power — dimly apprehended by the understanding 
and wholly unfelt by the heart— -now comes back as 
a living Presence into the midst of his creation, to 
revive with a genial warmth the chilled and awe- 
struck spirit, and draw it forth into grateful and 
happy communion with its Parent Mind. 



48 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

Now first Nature breaks the eternal silence, and 
finds an interpreter in that highest poetry through 
which God reveals his hidden thoughts to the awak- 
ened soul. This is not a mere sesthetic feeling. It 
is something purer and loftier than the simple emo~ 
tions of taste. Else the most picturesque eye would 
be the unfailing attendant of the devoutest heart ; 
and the rarer the beauty of the external scene, the 
deeper would be the impression of the unseen God. 
But it is not so. It is not the snow-peak alone 
cleaving the blue vault with its dazzling whiteness — 
nor the dark pine woods that girt its base — nor the 
rumbling of the distant avalanche — nor the roar of 
the torrent in the deep ravine — nor the sweet sun- 
light reflected with a vivid green from the moun- 
tain-slope — nor the quiet tinkling of the herdbells — 
nor the cheerful sounds of men and dogs mingling 
with the village chimes from the vale below — as 
they enter the mind through the charmed avenues 
of sense, and breathe into it a thrill of Alpine free- 
dom and joy — that suffice of themselves to inspire 
the severer and holier feeling which shook the breast 
of the poet, when he owned the solemn presence of 
Deity in the awful solitudes of the Grande Char- 
treuse.* For these are impressions which all must 
experience — the devout and the sceptical alike — 
whose perceptions have not been brutified by appe- 

* ' Praesentiorem conspicimus Deum 
Per invias rupes, fera per juga, 
Clivosque praeruptos, sonantes 

Inter aquas, nemorumque noctem.* 

Gray. 



god's descent to man. 



49 



tite or deadened by a sordid worldliness. They are 
a preparation and a help to piety — a soil where the 
devotional sentiment, if cast into it, will grow, and 
where it will be cherished, when already sown ; but 
they must not be confounded with it. He only is 
filled with the true spirit of devotion, who recognises 
in the outward forms of beauty, the mind of Him, who 
has chosen this mode of intercourse with his trustful 
and adoring offspring. Amid the grandeur and 
loneliness of Nature, the souls of such men rejoice 
in the companionship of the Spirit of 2STature. 
There is a deep worship within them, though no au- 
dible prayers go forth at the lips. As heart answer- 
eth to heart in the converse of men, so they are con- 
scious of a reciprocated sympathy with God : and 
from these ministrations at the fragrant altar of the 
great temple of the universe, they carry back with 
them a holier influence to consecrate the ordinary 
duties and affections of the world. 

This devotional enjoyment of the visible works 
of God, is a sentiment peculiar to Christianity, and 
those prophetic influences which preceded it in the 
mind of the Hebrew race. We find nothing corre- 
sponding to it in the remains of classical literature. 
In the sacred odes of the Greeks and in the descrip- 
tive poetry of the Romans, there is not a passage to 
remind us of the sublime bursts of pious feeling, 
kindled by the aspects of creation, which break forth 
continually in the Psalms and that wonderful poem 
of Job. The reason is obvious. Polytheism could 
not fix the religious affections with such intense con- 
centration on a single object, as is required to 



50 CHKISTXAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



awaken the profoundest veneration and awe; nor 
amid the varied scenery of nature, could it inspire a 
calm faith in the omnipresent guardianship and 
blessing of one Almighty Father. Its fabulous le- 
gends excited the imagination with their sensuous 
pictures, but left the affections untouched and met 
with no response in the highest moral feeling. The 
purest minds shrank from their bewildering in- 
fluence, and sought relief from the painful ideas of 
imperfection and strife, in the desolate unity of a 
mystic pantheism. The origin of a new feeling is 
due to the influence of a more spiritual Religion. 
We may even trace the rise of that sentimental taste 
for beautiful scenery, which so remarkably distin- 
guishes the modern from the ancient mind — in 
the writings of the Christian Fathers of the fourth 
century — Basil, Chrysostom and the Gregories — 
those accomplished men, who united a classical cul- 
ture with the Christian faith, and brought the senti- 
ments of a warm and elevated monotheism, refined 
by literature, to the contemplation of Nature.* This 
delightful taste seems to have a natural affinity with 
Christian devotion — even in the more ascetic forms 
of its manifestation. It is perceptible in the youth- 
ful fervour of the piety of St. Bernard. Under the 
severest exercises and mortifications of Citeaux, his 
spirit was still open to the softening influences of 
forest scenery, and he declared, he had often found 
his holiest inspirations in the vast silence of the 

* See the observations of Humboldt on this subject (Cosmos, Vol. 
II. p. 25. English transl.), with the beautiful extract from a letter of 
Basil to Gregory Nazianzen. 



ood's descent to man. 



51 



woods of oak and beech which sheltered his retreat 
from the world .* Nor can it be a mere accident, 
that the remains of our ancient abbeys — consecrated 
in the purity of their original intention to contem- 
plation and prayer — should so constantly occur in 
the bosom of the loveliest valleys. 

But when the spirit of devotion is once awaken- 
ed, it finds a beauty everywhere, because it beholds 
in all things the visible footsteps of God. The com- 
mon heavens with their ever-varying light and 
shade — fields and rural lanes, such as embrace 
every town and village with their verdant cincture 
— all the ordinary haunts and habitations of men- — 
lie warm and sunny and beautiful in the spirit's own 
brightness, and suffice for its serenest gratification. 
In the monotonous levels of our central England, 
Doddridge and Cowper asked for no grander objects 
to make them conscious of a Divine Presence, but 
as they strolled along the tall hedge-row, or gazed 
on the slow-winding stream, gave up their souls to 

Neander's ' Heilige Bernard' (s. 6. with note 4.) * Believe me 
on my own experience,'— he wrote in later years to a speculative the- 
ologian — ' thou wilt find more in the woods than in books ; trees and 
rocks will teach thee what thou canst never learn from masters' — • 
ep. 106. This was the doctrine of the banished duke in the forest of 
Arden : and Wordsworth says— 

' One impulse from a vernal wood 
May teach you more of man, 
Of moral evil and of good, 
Than all the sages can.' 

Elsewhere he calls himself one 

' who loved the brooks 
Better than all the sages' books,' 



52 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

fervent communion with the Father and rejoiced to 
feel themselves dwellers in His House.* Nay, the 
city itself is not unblest with these heavenly inspira- 
tions. That gush of human sympathy that brought 
tears into Charles Lamb's eyes, when he mingled in 
the living tide which pours through the streets of 
London, and he felt his heart beat responsive to the 
warm pulse of joy as it throbbed past himf — what 
was it — but the vivid consciousness of God — the 
breath of the Father, softening the bosom over 
which it swept, and filling it with his own merciful 
tenderness towards the great family of man % — God 
comes down to us and visits us. when these pure 
and loving emotions take full possession of our 
souls : — and the life of God is then begun on earth 
— heaven is already opening its flood of joy on the 
heart — when that spiritual consciousness which once 
ebbed and flowed and left us at times hard and dry, 
swells up into a full and constant stream, and 
spreads its calm and equable blessing over the 
broken surface of our terrestrial course. 

Our intensest conviction of the presence of God 
— our clearest persuasion that He has drawn nigh 
to us — is not, however, when we are the quiet and 
contemplative spectators of his works, or the passive 
recipients of outward influence — but in those higher 
exercises of faith which engage our wills, and put 
us on virtuous effort, and excite us to active co-oper- 

* See the characteristic letters in Doddridge's Diary and Corres- 
pendence, Vol. IV. pp. 124 and 211, Cowper'g Task abounds with 
illustrations, 

t Lamb's Letters and Life by Talfourd, Vol. I. p. 213 s 



god's descent to man. 



53 



ation with Him — when we seek Him and believe 
that we have found Him, in the glad appropriation 
of every duty, and the cheerful acceptance of every 
sacrifice, which He demands. It is in crises like 
these, that the Spirit of God descends into the hearts 
of the faithful and devoted, and endues them with 
a power and a wisdom not of this world. They are 
perplexed with anxieties and fears ; but they com- 
mit themselves in simple fidelity to Him ; — and 
peace comes back to them again. They could not 
see their way ; but they asked in faith for guidance ; 
— and light once more descended on their path. 
Beset with snares, they felt themselves weak and 
frail ; but they sought God in prayer ; — and His 
presence was realised, and new strength was at 
their side. Guided by an honest reason, and true 
to the voice within, they have surrendered them- 
selves to faith : — it is a lamp to illuminate their 
way, and a spirit and a power to control and shape 
the outward tendencies of things. Their whole spi- 
ritual being is drawn up to God, and replenished 
with His fulness. Mighty in him, they go forth to 
master difhculties, trample down temptations, en- 
dure afflictions, and do the whole work that is con- 
fided to them. 

Every self-sacrifice to right and truth — every 
high and earnest effort of heroic duty — brings with 
it a witness of the sustaining strength of God, and 
draws Him down into closer communion with the 
believing soul. When Lindsey forsook the Church 
to which early attachment and worldly interest so 
strongly bound him, and at the bidding of con- 



54: CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



science chose poverty and probable neglect for his 
worldly portion — can we doubt, that he had a re- 
doubled consciousness of the Divine presence and 
felt the Father a living comforter to his soul — at 
that trying moment, when amidst the farewells of 
weeping parishioners, he bent his pilgrim feet from 
the venerable House of Prayer and the comfortable 
home to which so many tender memories clung, and 
threw himself on the uncertain accidents of a cold 
and unsympathising world ?* When Clarkson knelt 
on the sod, and in the face of Heaven vowed to 
consecrate his life to the abolition of the traffic in 
human flesh and blood — did not that prayer spring 
from an absorbing sense of his spirit's union with 
God, and bring down as its response a holier im- 
pulse and diviner strength to go and achieve the 
blessed work of justice and mercy ?f In devout na- 
tures, the love of God ripens into an ardent attach- 
ment which can replace every other affection. It 
reconciles them to neglect and privation in the 
world, and cheers them in solitude with a con- 
stant feeling of invisible companionship and sym- 
pathy. The hymns of the "Wesleys, thrown off 
from the heart under the daily experience of scorn 
and persecution, overflow in every line with the 
rich unction of this passionate devotion. 

There are undoubtedly great differences of ori- 
ginal temperament in this respect. Some minds are 

* Belsham's Memoirs of Lindsey, ch. ii. p. 84, with note, recording 
the testimony of an eye-witness. 

t History of the Abolition of the Slave Trade, Vol. I. ch. vii. and 
viii. See also Lamb's Letters and Life, Vol. II. p. 118. 



GOD^S DESCENT TO MAN. 



55 



spontaneously more devotional than others. But 
perseverance in uprightness from religious motives is 
sure, in the natural order of spiritual development, 
to issue in a deepened consciousness of God's imme- 
diate access to the soul to sustain and comfort it. 
This susceptibility of religious impression and spi- 
ritual insight varies also in races of men, as well as 
in individuals. We find it in its highest form 
among the ancient Hebrews — connected with the 
recognition of one God, and of his intimate rela- 
tion to their moral condition. It was the founda- 
tion of the prophetic faculty so powerfully and won- 
derfully exercised by the greatest minds of that re- 
markable people. Nowhere in the world's history 
do we meet with an order of men who can be com- 
pared for depth and energy of spiritual influence, 
with the ancient prophets of the Hebrews. Not al- 
together does the original gift or aptitude appear to 
to have been dependent on moral qualifications. 
Hence we read at times, even of true prophets, 
whose whole character it is impossible to com- 
mend. It was evidently, however, enfeebled and 
dimmed by moral neglect, and then only assumed 
its highest clearness and force, when it co-operated 
with a pure and upright will, and put forth its ener- 
gy in a holy and self-denying life. The recorded 
oracles of the Old Testament lead plainly to the 
conclusion, that the essence of the prophetic faculty 
consists in intuitive perception of the fundamental 
realities of the invisible world—the unity and spir- 
ituality of God— His Providence and moral rule — ■ 
man's personal responsibility to him — the sure retri- 



56 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

butions of a sovereign justice — and the inward peace 
that must be found in the enjoyment of the Divine 
acceptance and blessing. The sense of these reali- 
ties seems to belong more to the native constitution 
of some minds than of others, just as there are men 
who, by their organisation have a readier apprehen- 
sion of the relations of sounds and the harmony of 
colors : — and the original pre-adaptation to discern 
them, is the root of the prophetic character — the 
germ of that spiritual affection which aspires after 
intercourse with God, and draws Him down into a 
a closer and more living communion with Man. 
"Where this spiritual pre-disposition co-exists with the 
greatest purity and power and disinterestedness of 
moral character — where there is the most sustained 
and strenuous effort to rise up to God, bringing back 
the largest and most direct action of His Spirit on 
the soul itself, so that the Spirit is not stinted in its 
flow, but cements the Divine and the Human into a 
perfect harmony — there all the conditions of a com- 
plete prophetic manifestation unite — there we be- 
hold 1 the desire of all nations' — that ideal of Hu- 
manity which is the object of yearning and aspira- 
tion to every devout heart. It is the satisfaction of 
these highest demands of man's soul in Jesus of Na- 
zareth, which is the ground of our faith in him — 
calls forth our sympathy and our trust — and bids us 
own and accept him as the Christ — the moral Sa- 
viour of the world. 

A true prophet acts on elements of kindred feel- 
ing in less gifted and awakened souls. By his at- 
tractive force in word and deed, he draws them out 



god's descent to man. 



57 



of darkness and degradation towards the light and 
eminence of his own more favored being ; and as 
they approach him, and more freely sympathise 
with him, canses the blessing of God to settle on 
their minds, even as it rests on his own. Yea, as 
they abide steadfast and faithful to their heavenly 
calling, and the spirit of Christ enters into and re- 
novates their hearts — they rise up step by step to 
the height of his own prophetic vision — till they 
behold and meet and bow their faces before the liv- 
ing God, whom he has evoked from the dark deeps 
of the universe, and made visible to the human 
soul. 

This clear and vivid consciousness of the Divine 
presence is like the breathing of a new life and a 
new spirit into all things. When it comes to us, it 
transforms the universe. We are no more the sub- 
jects of dullness, apathy, gloom, or fear. Who has 
not felt the difference of acting from the heart with 
conviction and sympathy, and acting as a mere 
slave to authority in the dull mechanism of routine 
and habit! Such is the difference between the 
awakened and the unawakened soul. Do you desire 
an innocent relish of this terrestrial life ? Would 
you taste the blessing that is so richly infused into 
the universe ? Seek and cherish the visitations of 
the Parent Spirit. He is the inner light that shines 
through all things grand and beautiful. His is the 
impulsive energy that prompts whatever is noble 
and glorious ; and His the plenteous joy that gushes 
forth in our pure affections and bathes the soul in 
its most exquisite happiness. All that gladdens and 



58 CHBISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

elevates your being — all that lifts you above the 
meanness and baseness of the world — all that binds 
you to the sanctities of duty — all that soothes and 
blesses you in the bosom of household love and in 
the society of gifted and virtuous spirits — comes 
to you from God ; is the inspiration of your Father 
descending on your soul; the token of His pres- 
ence ; the witness of His sympathy with those as- 
pirations of your higher nature which will fit you 
for never-ending intercourse and communion with 
Him, 



IV. 



CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 

1 Timothy, ii. 5, 6. 
t{ One God, and one mediator between God and men, the man 
Christ Jesus ; who gave himself a ransom for all." 

It may be deemed an objection to founding any 
Christian doctrine on these words, that they occur 
in the only one of thirteen epistles bearing the name 
of the apostle Paul, the authenticity of which has 
been gravely controverted by some learned men in 
recent times.* Without, however, insisting on the 
fact, that these doubts have not been universally or 
even generally shared — it may suffice to reply, that 
the writing, whoever be its author, is unquestion- 
ably very ancient, and represents the feeling and 
opinion of the first age of the Church. Moreover, 
the doctrine set forth by the text, is substantially in 
unison with that of the other Epistles, and with the 
pervading tenour of the New Testament. The term 
mediator is twice used in Galatians of Moses, as the 
introducer of the Old Dispensation (iii. 19, 20) ; and 
three times in Hebrews of Jesus himself, as the me- 
diator of the New (viii. 6, ix. 15, xii. 24). Twice 

* The reference is to Schleiermacher's criticism, ' Ueber den 
sogenannten ersten Brief des Paulos an den Timotheos.' 



60 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AJSTD T>Vtf 

in the Gospels (Matth. xx. 28, Mark x, 25,) lias our" 
Lord spoken of his death, as a ransom paid for 
many. There can be no reasonable donbt, therefore, 
that the doctrine of our text is a doctrine of genuine 
and primitive Christianity. 

In this doctrine the grand and prominent idea is 
that of mediation, as fulfilled and completed by the 
willing sacrifice of life to religious duty. Man in 
Ms highest mood of thought, aspires to God. God 
meets and accepts the sincere aspirations of man. 
A mediator is one who by the influence of his life 
and doctrine, quickens, facilitates, and fixes this 
spiritual intercourse between the soul and its Crea- 
tor. Let us notice the three points specially brought 
under our view by the text, in the mediatorial 
office of Christ. — First, he stands alone. 4 There is 
one mediator between God and men, the man Christ 
Jesus.' This can only refer to unrivalled pre-emi- 
nence, not to exclusive function. For all higher 
minds do in fact mediate between their less gifted 
fellow-creatures and the great realities of the invis- 
ible world. The sages and poets of heathendom 
kindled the first glimmerings of a religous life in 
fierce and brutal natures, and made them capable 
of civilisation. Moses and the prophets were the 
mediators of a truth, that struck deeper into the 
heart of humanity, and prepared it for higher spi- 
ritual development. On their foundation Christ 
erected his Church as an universal and final dispen- 
sation — offering to all who accept hira as the Sent 
of God, the surest medium of access to the Divine 
Presence. — Secondly, he is a human mediator, ' the 



CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 



61 



man Christ Jesus' — not a being from another sphere, 
an angel or a God — but a brother from the bosom 
of our own human family — exposed to our tempta- 
tions, touched with our griefs, and sharing our af- 
fections — who goes in front of the host of immortal 
spirits — the sinless captain of their salvation — to 
cheer their hearts, and guide their steps, and bear 
up their prayers to the Father's throne. — Thirdly, 
'he gave himself a ransom for alV who embrace 
his offers and will hearken to his voice. He brings 
from God a general summons to repent ; and with 
that he conveys through faith, a spiritual power to 
shake off the bondage of sin, and put on the freedom 
of a new heart and a new life. He is a Deliverer 
from the power of sin and the fear of death. This 
is the end of his mediation. This is the redemp- 
tion of which he paid the price. His death cheer- 
fully met in the inevitable sequence of faithful duty, 
was only one among many links in the chain of 
instrumentalities by which that deliverance was 
effected. It was a proof, such as could be given in 
no other way, of trust in God and immortality, of 
fidelity to duty, and of love for mankind. In those 
who earnestly contemplated it, and saw all that it 
implied, it awoke a tender response of gratitude and 
confidence, which softened the obdurate heart, and 
opened it to serious impressions and the quickening 
influences of a religious spirit. 

Such were the actual workings of the death of 
Jesus on the minds of simple and devout believers ; 
such were the spiritual realities grasped and appro- 
priated, amidst a mass of extraneous conceptions in 



62 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITU AND DUTY. 

which they were enveloped and disguised. The 
execution of Christ as a disturber of the established 
order of things, between two common malefactors — 
was an offensive image — from which, in its naked 
baseness, the mind of Jew and Gentile equally re- 
coiled. When, therefore, they looked upon it af- 
terwards from the higher ground of faith — they 
clothed it with a mystical significance, and associ- 
ated it with elements of belief still subsisting in 
their minds from an earlier and more rudimental 
dispensation. 45 * The whole public and sacerdotal 
religion of antiquity, whether Jewish or Heathen, 
was based on the idea of atonement and propitiation 
— the necessity of appeasing with sacrifice the wrath 
of Deity excited by human sin ; and so deeply had 
that anthropomorphic conception rooted itself in 
the mind of the multitude, that it was impossible 
even for the energy of a heaven-descended gospel 
to extirpate it at once. Thus, higher and lower con- 
ceptions of God's relationship to his creatures, still 
maintained a latent antagonism in the popular creed. 
Simple and earnest believers, obeying the spontane- 
ous impulse of old associations, and unconscious of 
any inconsisteucy with the juster principles which 
they had more recently imbibed— spoke of the death 
of Christ, as in itself and directly a ransom of the 
forfeited souls of men, from impending destruction 
« — a propitiation, which took away all hindrance to 

* The epistle to the Hebrews — written probably under the influ- 
ence of an Alexandrine Judaism — exhibits this intermediate state of 
mind, transferring to the Gospel with a spiritualized, application, ideas 
and feelings that had been cherished under the Law. 



CHKIST THE MEDIATOK. 



63 



a free communication of the Divine Mercy, and put 
men in a condition to receive its refreshing streams 
on their cleansed and justified souls. 

This supposition of an admixture of foreign ele- 
ments with the predominant purport of the glad 
tidings of Divine Love, accounts most naturally for 
the appearance of certain passages in the New Tes- 
tament, which only by a forced and doubtful inter- 
pretation can be brought into accordance with what 
we justly accept as the fundamental doctrine of 
Christianity — the free, unpurchased mercy of God. 
Left to themselves and the free development of the 
spirit of Christ — the vital elements of gospel truth 
would long ago have blighted in their mighty 
shadow, those growths of Jewish and Heathen su- 
perstition, which shot up beneath them in the un- 
weeded soil of humanity. But the perverseness of 
theological science system atised alike the false and 
the true, the transitory and the permanent, and in- 
scribed them all with a title of equal authority. 
And in later times a narrow and scrupulous bibliol- 
atry has fancied it more reverent to extort from 
words a meaning they were never meant to yield, 
than to admit in a single instance, that Scripture 
could be the vehicle of notions which belong to a 
by-gone age. 

Two considerations are of much weight in con- 
nexion with this subject : (1.) the deep craving after 
a spiritual mediator in the popular mind of all ages, 
with the evident need of one, fully and healthfully 
to develope its religious life : and (2.) the marvel- 
lous fulfilment of the required conditions of such 



64: CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

mediation in the person of Christ. The religious 
sentiment abandoned to merely natural influences, 
without the guidance of some mind of profounder 
spiritual insight, is ever prone to diverge into the 
opposite extremes of polytheism and pantheism. 
We conceive it to have been the special function of 
the old Hebrew prophecy, in the order of providence, 
as it still is of the Gospel of Christ — to uphold the 
mind in a just mean between these extremes — to ex- 
clude on the one hand material representations and 
multiform conceptions of Deity, and on the other 
to fix the mind with a definite faith, on G-od as a 
person — a conscious Mind— surveying with a moral 
interest the voluntary acts of his creature, man. 
"Where the native impulses of the multitude have 
been exempted from this higher direction, we find 
them either absorbed by a bewildering superstition, 
or lapsing into a powerless unbelief. If men are 
governed by their feelings and their imagination, 
they make to themselves gods of their sensations, 
and endow with the reflected attributes of their own 
being, the agency in nature — terrific, voluptuous or 
beneficent — by which they are themselves most in- 
tensely awed and captivated and thrilled. The na- 
tural man puts himself forth without disguise in his 
primitive faith and worship. Diversities of indivi- 
dual character, the hereditary temperament of race, 
influences of climate and locality — the mountain 
ridge or the luxuriant vale, the woodland or the 
boundless steppe — all have their effect in shaping 
out the objects of human adoration, and determining 
the rites and offerings by which they are to be con- 



CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 



65 



ciliated and appeased. The old polytheism was as 
varied in its aspects as Nature herself. It was Na- 
ture in the plenitude of sensuous wealth, projecting 
the shadow of her gorgeous but coarse imagery on 
the pure expanse of the Infinite ; not the might and 
glory of the Infinite coming down on Nature with 
resistless influence to chasten and spiritualise her 
wild energies, and humble them in reverent submis- 
sion to the law of the Eternal. Here bewildered 
parents placed their writhing infants in the burning 
arms of Moloch, to the hideous clang of temple- 
music ; and there brutal voluptuaries wallowed in 
the orgies of Astarte and Mylitta. The stern war- 
god, whose priests circled his altar with their frantic 
sword-dance* — the Arcadian Artemis, prolific of 
life and brooding over the elemental seeds of things 
in the depth of syl van glades and the ooze of ferti- 
lising springs f — Pan, the fancied echoes of whose 
mystic pipe were heard in sheltered vallies amidst 
the bleating of lambs and the lowing of kine — and 
Apollo, whose radiant car as it rolled through the 
heavens, poured down a flood of life and joy on the 
beaming face of this nether world — were more than 
names, in the days of early and unquestioning faith, 
to adorn a poem or give a religious solemnity to the 
usages of life : — they were a reality — a living pre- 
sence — to the fond and credulous votary, who be- 

* Bellicrepa saltatio. ejo-Xtof dp^ffis — Festus. 

f Der alte Arkader sieh seine Artemis als eine an Quellen unci 
Teichen wohnende Naturgottin dachte, welehe die Jungen des 
Wildes, wie das Menschenkind, trankt, und erzieht und gedeihen 
lasst.' — K. O.Muller, Wissenschaftlich. Mytholog. p. 76. 

4* 



66 CHRISTIAN" ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



held in them the reflection of his own sentient being, 
and worshipped them for their congeniality with his 
spontaneous belief. 

But there were minds of another order — contem- 
plative, and capable of reasoning. "With them the 
religious sentiment took a different direction, and 
tended through successive phases of opinion, to self- 
extinction. They observed, how the apparently con- 
flicting agencies of nature ultimately mingled and 
coalesced in certain broad and pervading results — 
till they attained to the conception of a vast con- 
nected whole, wherein but few could recognise the 
expression of Sovereign Mind. They who were re- 
puted wisest, called it Nature, and for the most part 
meant by that, an eternal Law — an all-controlling 
Necessity — within whose changeless bosom things 
rose and perished and rose again in never-varying 
cycle — but void of consciousness, to sympathise with 
the beings it embraced — void of will, to command a 
moral obedience — and void of love, to inspire a re- 
sponsive affection. 

In neither of the extremes now described, can 
minds in which the moral sense is at all awakened, 
or which have any glimpses of spiritual insight, rest 
content. Perplexed and ill at ease, they look round 
for some guide to the highest truth — some authentic 
interpreter of the great mystery of their being. 
There is a craving for light, and a willingness to ac- 
cept it from any quarter, if only it can offer reason- 
able credentials of a heavenly source. As the old 
faiths die out and philosophy proves its hollowness, 
every one of holy and benevolent life is listened to 



CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 



67 



with deference, and gladly welcomed as a messenger 
from God, who gives evidence of authority, to de- 
clare His will and manifest His presence, and to 
define and make plain the terms of intercourse be- 
tween Him and His creatures. It is in the clear re- 
cognition of a living God, and of His personal rela- 
tions of authority and affection towards the human 
race — that the power of Religion consists. Reli- 
gious natures demand something more than the bare 
abstractions of reason. They desire some visible 
token of the unseen Presence — something concrete 
and historical, which they can lay hold of and dis- 
tinctly realise to the mental eye. They feel it a re- 
lief, in the spiritual vastness which encompasses 
them, to be able to rest their bewildered vision on 
an actual personality, clothed in the form of human 
affections and moving within the limits of human 
events, through which they can become more vividly 
conscious of their individual relation to God, and 
discern as by a light from heaven, what they must 
be and do to enter into loving communion with Him. 
In perceiving their ignorance of many things seen 
to be of vital interest to their supreme well-being, 
they gladly throw themselves on an authority, which 
is proportionate to their awakened moral sentiment, 
and which commands their fullest reverence and 
trust. 

On feelings allied to these, priestcraft and sor- 
cery, it is true, have often fastened themselves, and 
acquired a withering and debasing influence over 
the mind. But the want expressed by them, is not 
the less real, because selfish and ambitious men have 



68 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

abused it to their own ends. When the direction 
given comes from a pure source, and is associated, 
as in the case of the Hebrew prophets, with a mono- 
theistic and profoundly moral faith — it is of im- 
mense and most beneficent influence in the develop- 
ment of the religious life. In the Israelitish race, 
and those portions of the human family that were in- 
fluenced by them, it cherished the elements of true 
Heligion, and kept them from being scattered and 
lost. It trained up the mind to a moral ripeness for 
the comprehension of Christ's wisdom and for sym- 
pathy with his sanctity and love. It may be alleged, 
that all this, however useful in its time and place, was 
but a rudimental and transient process ; that Christ- 
appeared, did his work and passed away ; and that 
having proclaimed great principles, which delivered 
mankind from the thraldom of a priesthood, the de- 
gradation of idolatrous polytheism, and the mechan- 
ism of outward law — his further mediation between 
God and man became unnecessary and can have no 
relation to us. In reply to this suggestion, let us 
examine what are the facts of history and the testi- 
monies of experience ? 

When the Church interposed its veil of sacerdo- 
tal rite and mystic symbolism between the mind of 
Christ and the mind of his flock, cut off the living 
intercourse of the Spirit, and closed up the light of 
the Eternal Word in the darkness of an unknown 
tongue ; when the multitudes were again surren- 
dered to their natural impulses, scarce checked by a 
faint tradition of the primitive Gospel and the in- 
structions of a clergy^ only less ignorant than them- 



CHEIST THE MEDIATOR. 



69 



selves, or if blest with more light in the upper grades, 
too proud and too timorous to descend into the con- 
flict with popular barbarism : what did Europe be- 
hold ? The reappearance of one of the evils, which 
it had been the object of Christianity to expel — the 
rise of a new polytheism, which brought back again 
the hero-worship of antiquity — covered the land with 
strange altars — repeopled its woods, its fountains and 
its hills with a fresh mythology — and driving the 
Father out of sight into the hidden depths of the 
universe, transformed the lowly and gentle Christ 
into a being of terrible and vengeful omnipotence, 
and embodied what yet remained of the beneficence 
of Deity, in the maternal sweetness and purity of 
the Queen of Heaven. 

It is urged, that Science was the destined cor- 
rective of these tendencies ? But does Science, in 
dissipating superstition, always spare the vitality of 
Religion itself? Has not experience shown, that the 
recognition of a Christ, a personal, historical mani- 
festation of the living God — is still needed for the 
preservation of a true monotheism in the soul of 
man ? Observe the present movement of philoso- 
phic intellect in Europe. As Science disjoins itself 
from Christianity, or merely allows it a place among 
the general agents of civilization — a power devel- 
oped in the natural order of things, not an influence 
sent down from heaven, to reconcile humanity with 
God ; — the result is rarely the adoption of a pure 
and elevated theism, but too often the reduction of 
deity to a mere force — the substitution of mechani- 
cal law for living will— the exclusion of intelligence 



70 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

from the foundations of the universe, and the recog- 
nition of it in man alone, as the true divinity of our 
world, the consummation of its progressive develop- 
ment — bringing with him into the system of things, 
an agency before unknown, and nowhere else to be 
found. 

But let us leave philosophers out of the question, 
and think only of that immense mass of men for 
whose maintenance in the paths of virtue, Religion 
is more especially required. How do they stand 
affected towards a mediator % Are they in spiritual 
matters able to walk alone ? Apart from that au- 
thoritative judgment which millions of the best 
minds with unexampled unanimity have pronounced 
through a long series of ages, on one pre-eminent 
life, how can they select for themselves, amidst so 
many competitors for their confidence, the one Teach- 
er and Guide who will most safely conduct them in 
the road to Heaven ? If they throw off the yoke of 
Christ, what can they assume in its stead ? We are 
reasonably required to suggest a substitute for that 
which is renounced. The multitudes cannot be left 
to themselves. They want a standard and a direc- 
tion ; and the existence of such want leads us to ex- 
pect — or all the analogies of creation deceive us — 
that the means of satisfying it will not have been 
withheld by Providence. Confining our attention 
now to that portion only of the human race with 
which we by descent and circumstance are immedi- 
ately connected — let us consider how Christ who is 
still mentally present with us in the ~New Testament, 
seems qualified, by the adaptation of his person ami 



CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 



11 



work to our spiritual necessities, to act as a media- 
tor between us and God. 

The spirit of Keligion exerts its strongest influ- 
ence through the moral part of our nature. When 
moral culture is neglected, or outrun by a dispropor- 
tionate development of mere intellectual activity, 
those highest and most ethereal feelings which have 
God for their object, evaporate and vanish. Great 
mischief has ever resulted from this want of har- 
mony in the culture of the faculties ; and we are not 
without experience of its effects in the stage of civ- 
ilization at which we have now arrived. The lust of 
wealth, the constant struggle for social position, the 
fever of competition, the contagion of popular be- 
wilderment, the absorbing spirit of association — 
even the discoveries of physical science and the tri- 
umphs of art and the marvellous helps which they 
afford to material progress — distract the mind from 
self-introspection, and amidst the glare and whirl of 
outward phantasms, almost deaden it to the percep- 
tion of the great invisible realities that lie enshrined 
in the depths of conscience. Our civilization, there- 
fore, wonderful as it is, is not an unmixed good. 
We are less thrown on ourselves than formerly. We 
have too many pretexts and temptations to devolve 
our personal responsibilities on Society. ' "We are 
but units — each severally of small account — in huge 
masses of consolidated interest, to the weight and 
workings of which the predominant philosophy 
chiefly directs our attention. The soul once so pre- 
cious even in the humblest of mortals, that minds as 
richly endowed as a Baxter's, held it their first duty 



72 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DtJTY. 

to watch over it and pray for it, till they had satis- 
factory evidence of its conversion — has well nigh be- 
come a nonentity* The creeds of former generations 
— undermined and rotten — are giving way,— and so 
far, they might go without regret l but too often they 
carry away in their ruins, the seeds of that faith in 
the divine and eternal, without which our nobler na- 
ture starves and perishes. In the face of such facts 
as these, can we doubt, that there is still need for 
mediation between man and God — for some stronger 
infusion of spiritual influence into human affairs — 
for the living action of Christ's own spirit — no more 
intercepted by priests, or darkened by dogmas, or 
choked with prejudice and ignorance — on the open 
and expectant souls of myriads of tried, tempted and 
suffering men ? 

The first thing is — to set vividly before them, and 
make them feel, the great and lovely virtue there was 
in Christ, — and by this exhibition, to quicken their 
sense of moral deficiencies, and excite their moral 
longings and aspirations. Contrition, humiliation, 
deep-felt unworthiness and sin, consciousness of the 
wide chasm between themselves and God — such 
emotions are in most men the beginnings of a reli- 
gious life — the moving of the Spirit over the dark 
and troubled waters of the soul : and in these emo- 
tions the want of a Mediator — some heavenly Coun- 
sellor and Guide — is intensely experienced — One 
who shall take us by the hand, and lead us up to 
God, and give us assurance of his Fatherly compas- 
sion and abounding love. Overwhelmed with shame 
and remorse, the soul feels itself shut out from God. 



CUEIST THE MEDIATOR. 



How can it gain access to Him ? Christ rises before 
the thoughts of the smitten and downcast penitent — 
the Friend of sinners, and the Comforter of the sor- 
rowing — the Perfection of Holiness, but also the 
Perfection of Love. To the bruised heart and smart- 
ing conscience he applies the healing balm of Divine 
Mercy. The felt adaptation of his Gospel to the 
deepest wants of our souls, disposes us to embrace 
it as a word of peace from Heaven : and the secret 
witness of the Spirit seals it as authentically divine. 
The burden is taken away. Free access is opened 
to God. Despair vanishes ; hope springs up in its 
place ; and power from on high gives new vigour to 
commence a nobler life. Thus Christ offers himself 
to the soul, as a spiritual medium of approach to 
God ; fixes its upward gaze ; defines its apprehen- 
sions ; sustains its soarings towards the Infinite ; 
discloses to the inward eye, things invisible and 
familiarises them to the affections. 

Christ is fitted for this office of spiritual mediator 
— as a man — not a mere man, but the Ideal of Man 
— living, as no other hath ever done, in pure and 
unbroken harmony with the Father — advanced to 
that point in the order of moral development, where 
God and man are at one. As Christ was not a God, 
his genuine service can never degenerate into idola- 
try. The orthodox do not worship a deified man, 
but the one true God through some mysterious pro- 
cess united with man. Christ was the highest pro- 
phet of Monotheism — a servant and worshipper of 
the Universal Father. — Neither was he a priest. 
Only by figure and comparison, in a single book of 



74 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

Scripture, is he so designated. He does not inter- 
pose to prevent our immediate intercourse with God, 
but simply conducts us to Him. When he has 
drawn us up to his own height of vision, and given 
us confidence to look in the face of our Father, he 
steps back into the same line with ourselves, and 
delivers us over to God, that our souls may hence- 
forth subsist, like his own, in direct contact with the 
Eternal Mind. Christ stands before us in the Gos- 
pel, as the Head of the great brotherhood of man — 
displaying in perfection the spirit which should cir- 
culate through the subordinate grades of humanity 
and consecrate them to the service of God — charged 
with functions and invested with responsibilities, 
which we in our narrower range of action and influ- 
ence are equally bound to take up and fulfil. The 
Divine in him does not overpower the Human, but 
coalesces with it. His very miracles do not raise 
him above humanity ; they only expand its sphere, 
and heighten its manifestation. It is the light of 
human affection which makes them beautiful. They 
are not some vast overwhelming influence descend- 
ing at once from the skies on the lowly bearing and 
humble lot of the houseless prophet of Nazareth — 
but gently follow his steps wherever he goes, like a 
halo of love from the depth of his human heart — • 
the exhaled essence of his inmost being, radiating 
from its material vehicle, and expressing the myste- 
rious interfusion of his spirit with the Omnipresent 
Mind that breathes through nature and moulds it 
at will. 

The great task of his life — mediation between 



CHRIST THE MEDIATOR. 



75 



God and man — was crowned and completed by his 
death. In the preaching of his apostles he is pro- 
claimed to ns as the risen and ascended Christ — the 
glorified inhabitant of a heavenly world. And that 
is the relation which he permanently sustains to ns, 
as the Ideal of our perfected humanity. Into that 
glorious world, he constantly beckons us to follow 
him. A dark and fearful tide rolls between that 
realm of light and ours. Thousands cross it every 
hour, and vanish to our mortal eye. But the voice 
of the Holy One comes to us in that awful transition 
with words of comfort across the abyss. If we are 
his, we need not fear. If the mind that was in him, 
be also in us, we shall be sharers of his immortal 
inheritance. He has gone before, and opened to us 
the gates of a boundless future : and the brief record 
of his earthly course reveals enough of his trials and 
his sorrows, and of that patient spirit of love by 
which he wrought wisdom out of them, and trans- 
formed them into blessedness — to give us clear in- 
sight into the duty and destiny of man — to connect 
in one solemn view the preparations of time and the 
issues of eternity — to show us how we must act and 
suffer through all the vicissitudes of this terrestrial 
scene, to be united at last with him, our soul's best 
Eriend and holiest Counsellor, in the rest and joy of 
our Father's house. 



V. 



THE HARMONY OF THE DIVINE AND HUMAN IN 
CHRIST. 

Luke, xxii. 41, 2, 3, 4, 5. 

u And he was withdrawn from them about a stone's cast, and 
kneeled down, and prayed, 

" Saying, Father, if thou be willing, remove this cup from me ; 
nevertheless, not my will, but thine, be done. 

" And there appeared an angel unto him from heaven, strength- 
ening him. 

" And being in an agony he prayed more earnestly ; and his sweat 
was as it were great drops of blood falling down to the ground. 

" And when he rose up from prayer, and was come to his disci- 
ples, he found them sleeping for sorrow." 

]STo doctrine was a more fertile source of unpro- 
fitable controversy in the early ages of the Church, 
and in its orthodox enunciation has more perplexed 
the mind with irreconcilable contradictions, than 
that of the two natures in Christ. Yet there is a 
view, in which it may be shown to possess a certain 
affinity with ultimate truth — to fill a place at least 
in the order of thought, where a truth should be. 
The co-existence of two natures — or more correctly 
of two elements, two tendencies, in one nature — is 
the attribute of universal humanity, and therefore 
pre-eminently of Christ, as its ideal — its highest 
embodied manifestation. In him alone we perceive 
a perfect union of the two elements. He. alone 
• 



DIVIDE AND HUMAN IN CHRIST. f f 

Wends and harmonises the two tendencies. Our* 
language Is deficient iri ternls that mart with pre- 
cision the distinction "between the elements in ques- 
tion. Divine and human are inadequate \ for some 1 
infusion of the divine enters into every true concep- 
tion of humanity. The apostle Paul most nearly 
perhaps expresses the distinction that we all feel 
without being able exactly to explain it, where he 
contrasts the spiritual* with the natural^ and says 
— 'that was not first which is spiritual, but that 
which is natural ; and afterward that which is spir- 
itual.' (1 Cor. xv. 46.) To avoid unnecessary de- 
viation from established modes of speech, and to 
bring the view here proposed, into more direct com- 
parison with the orthodox theory, I shall not wholly 
abandon the terms — divine and human : but when 
they are used, it must be recollected it is in the sense 
which Paul attaches to spiritual and natural. "What 
that sense is, and how it applies to the person of 
Christ, I shall now inquire. 

If there be a God, a spiritual world and a future 
life — and our Christian faith implies, that we as- 
sume these truths — then we do not misrepresent 
man's condition, by supposing him placed on the 
verge of two connected states of being in the as- 
cending scale of creation — a link between the angel 
and the brute — the most highly gifted tenant of 
earth, qualified, on his departure from it — if its pre- 
paratory discipline has been rightly used — to join 
the ranks of higher intelligences. This principle of 
progressive development — this consciousness of des- 

* To rtvevjAariKOi/. t To xpv^iKOv. 



78 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



tination for a more exalted future—- involves an an- 
tagonism in man's nature, when its moral feelings 
have been once awakened, between the instincts and 
their resulting efforts which form the basis of his 
existence here, and the aspirations which are con- 
tinually bearing him out of the present, into the 
hope of a more perfect state hereafter. In this 
struggle, his moral .discipline consists. On no other 
terms could he be at once a dweller on earth and 
an heir of heaven. His privileges and his perils 
—his sublimest joys and darkest sorrows — joys and 
sorrows of whose intensity inferior natures have no 
perception- — are a consequence of the critical posi- 
tion which he is appointed to fill. He is a com- 
pound of the natural and the spiritual. We recog- 
nise in him at once the merely human, and an inci- 
pient influence of the divine. The natural or simply 
human is not, as a popular theology represents it, 
in itself evil. In its original destination, like every- 
thing else which proceeds from God, it is good. It 
only becomes evil by the abuse of our free agency. 
It is as much an essential part of our being, as the 
spiritual — and is no less acceptable to God, and con- 
sistent with the purest virtue, when the actions 
which it prompts, and the dispositions which grow 
out of it, are kept within their proper limits, and 
made to subserve the higher ends successively dis- 
closed by the spiritual. It embraces all our im- 
planted appetites and affections — all our instincts of 
self-preservation and self-advancement — the propen- 
sity so inherent in every one, till checked by ulte- 
rior considerations, to revel in the pleasures of the 



THE DIVINE AND HUMAN IN CHRIST. 



79 



present moment, and to extract all the advantage 
and all the honour and all the enjoyment possible, 
from the means and opportunities placed at our dis- 
posal in our passage through the world. On the 
other hand, we discern in the spiritual element of 
our being — the restraining sense of a moral law— - 
the supreme authority of conscience — the inextin- 
guishable feeling, that we are destined for something 
beyond the present and the actual — and all those 
higher sentiments which are involved in the solemn 
consciousness of God, envelope us with the awe of 
his presence, and in the grand idea of immortality, 
indicate the final end of all our efforts and aspira- 
tions. This spiritual element marks our affinity 
with God. It is the witness of our sonship. It is 
the medium of our intercourse. It is the link which 
unites the human with the divine. One system un- 
derlies another in the order of spiritual develop- 
ment. The presages of a higher life grow up and 
discover themselves amidst the many chilling and 
repressive influences which invest this terrestrial 
scene, as the germs of a coming spring are matured 
in the bosom of the frozen earth, and sometimes put 
forth a solitary blade and a pale flower ere the incle- 
mency of the winter is past. 

All spiritual existence is of the same quality, 
presupposes the same conditions, and is subject to 
the same inherent laws.* Spirit is the active prin- 
ciple of the universe ; and activity, if it is to issue 
in order and harmony and not prove self-destruc- 

* Hvyyevls nav to XoyiKdv. — Marc. Anton. III. 4. ' All minds are 
of one family.' — Charming. 



80 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

tive, must of necessity operate within certain fixed 
limits, wliicii constitute its fundamental law. Sim- 
ple intellect — the devisal of expedients and the com- 
bining of powers to effect contemplated ends — may- 
exist in infinite gradations from the least advanced 
of the human race up to God. But for the control 
and regulation of intellect in all its developments, it 
is clear that a supreme and absolute law must sub- 
sist, to bring its diversified results into unison — to 
keep it from disorganizing the system of things, and 
producing universal chaos. Without further pursu- 
ing this abstract subject, every thoughtful mind will 
perceive on reflection, that those modes of action or 
of relation towards other beings, which are expressed 
by the terms rectitude, truthfulness, holiness, love 
(if indeed they be not all ultimately resolvable into 
some more comprehensive idea), constitute a law 
arising out of the nature of things, immutable and 
eternal, which is as binding on the Sovereign Intel- 
lect, as it is on the smallest and feeblest minds, to 
the extent that they are conscious of its existence. 
If we suppose any one of these qualities absent, and 
represent to ourselves the effect of its suspension on 
the course of events ; we shall at once understand, 
what is meant by the necessity of an ultimate moral 
law. On this law the universe is founded. It is 
the organic principle which presided at the creation 
of the world. It is the wisdom which £ the Lord 
possessed in the beginning of his way, before his 
works of old' (Pro v. viii. 22) ; which £ was present 
with Him, when he made the world, and which 
knoweth and understandeth all things' (Wisdom of 



THE DIVINE AND HUMAN IN CHRIST. 



81 



Solomon, ix. 9, 11). It is the Divine "Word or Lo- 
gos of the Alexandrine theosophists, which John be- 
held incarnate in Christ,* as the perfection of Wis- 
dom : and the germ of which, implanted in the 
souls of all men, when it attained a certain ripeness, 
made the most advanced of the heathen sages — in 
the judgment of some early fathers — the partakers 
of an anticipated Christianity. f It is the heavenly 
seed which buried for a time in the furrows of hu- 
man ignorance and carnality, grows up into the 
harvest of eternal life, and engrafts the soul into the 
divine nature. It is the 4 true Light, which lighteth 
every man that cometh into the world' (John i. 9) ; 
or, as the same idea is expressed by the son of 
Sirach, ' the wisdom which is with all flesh, accord- 
ing to the gift of the Lord, and which He hath given 
to them that love Him' (Eccles. i. 10). 

The fundamental, universal distinction, then, of 
spiritual existence is this Logos or moral law, which 
binds and governs the operation of all intellect from 
God to man, and is reflected with increasing clear- 
ness in the conscience of every progressive soul. 
To the range and development and inherent re- 

* 'O \6yos o-apl iyiviTO. 

t The passages in Justin Martyr expresssng this sentiment, are 
well known : Apol. I. 46. (Ot fiera Adyou Pidjo-avrsg yLpiGTiavoi dai) and 
II. 8. According to him, the difference between Christ and others > 
is that between a whole and a part — rdv -Kavra A6yov and ansppaTiKov 
A6yov fxepos ;— which is identical with the doctrine of John (iii. 34.) 
1 God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto him.' We discern a kin- 
dred feeling, as to the universality of the Adyof , in the prophet's com- 
prehension of Egypt and Assyria in the same blessing with Israel.— 
Isaiah xix. 23-25. 

5 



82 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

sources of intellect, it is impossible to assign any 
limit. What it must be in Deity, as the absolute 
Being, transcends our conception. "We compare the 
Divine mind with ours, that we may have some- 
thing within the grasp of our reason to dwell upon ; 
but the finite cannot measure the Infinite ; and did 
we not ascribe moral attributes to God which excite 
our sympathy, and by implying consciousness and 
will include the idea of personality, God would be 
wholly incomprehensible. The Logos bridges over 
the chasm that separates Him from us. The affec- 
tions of faith and love which it involves — faith rely- 
ing on the tendencies that incite us to good, love 
sympathising with the beneficent harmony that per- 
vades His creation — fill up the vast interval, and 
though still immeasurably distant from his absolute 
perfection, bring us into vital communion with Him 
by holy earnestness of aspiration and endeavour. 

From the complete ascendancy of the spiritual 
over the natural element of humanity, subjecting all 
the lower impulses and activities to the supreme au- 
thority of the moral law, and removing every ob- 
stacle to a perfect harmony of the human with the 
Divine will — result the earthly perfection of man 
and his fitness for a higher stage of existence. Here 
we get the true point of view for apprehending that 
peculiar and undefinable character which in the 
feeling of all Christians, belongs to the prophet of 
Nazareth, and which they intend to express, when 
they speak of his divinity. It is the entire subordi- 
nation of the natural to the spiritual in his life. It 
is the interfusion of the divine and human in one 



THE DIVINE AND HUMAN IN CHRIST. 



88 



tranquil and harmonious How of being. It is the 
final conquest over self and sense and fear in his 
soul, that love and holiness and joy, might take their 
place. It is the manifestation of the Logos in its 
fullness ; — the enjoyment of the spirit without mea- 
sure; — the full development of all the lineaments 
and proportions of the moral nature of man ; — so 
that for once humanity might behold all its spiritual 
relations perfectly sustained, and have a momentary 
glimpse of the blessed union that is possible be- 
tween a pure mind and God. But this divinity 
grew out of the human elements that were at its 
base, and that alone make it intelligible and instruc- 
tive to us. It was the perfection of humanity, as 
such perfection is conceivable within the limits and 
conditions of this introductory existence. It was the 
perfection of one intended to show us, how man 
must pass from earth to heaven, and may be for 
ever united with God. Christ underwent all our 
trials, temptations, sufferings, fears. Evil approach- 
ed ; he felt its power, or he could not have been 
man : but it was repelled before it touched the in- 
ner sanctuary of the soul. Its dark images glanced 
for an instant over the mirror of conscience, but left 
its surface unstained. It was the discipline of a liv- 
ing virtue. It tested the strength and purity of the 
spiritual within him, and gave him new courage to 
rely on its future support. When he drew to the 
close of his mortal career, and looked back on the 
task of duty which had been entrusted to him — he 
could say — in the full consciousness, that the spirit- 
ual had achieved its victory over the natural — what 



ti CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

no other member of God's human family has ever 
yet said — c it is finished.' 

In this sense, the divine and human were har- 
monised in Christ. The subject is perplexed by 
transcendental questions about the possibility of per- 
fection in any being of finite powers. I speak here 
of a relative perfection — such as man is capable of, 
and can conceive. We can imagine a human being, 
placed under given circumstances and possessed of 
certain endowments, fully acting up to all the moral 
requirements of his position, showing that the power 
of the Logos penetrated his whole soul — and living in 
unbroken harmony with the higher relations of the 
spiritual world. Such a perfection, we believe, was 
exhibited by Christ — and by Christ alone. We look 
on him as the realisation of a human ideal. He stands 
immeasurably in advance of the moral attainments 
of the world. We need such an example to incite 
our aspirations and shape our endeavours. On the 
verge of that other life, he illuminates the path by 
which we must reach it through this. He marks the 
mysterious passage from time into eternity ; shows us 
what we must look for, and how we must prepare : 
and then, casting off the habiliments of mortality, 
vanishes in that light where God is all in all. Christ, 
as the incarnate Logos, was the consummation of mo- 
ral excellence, so far as that is compatible with the un- 
alterable conditions of humanity. Learning and sci- 
ence and artistic skill are not embraced in the attri- 
butes of the Logos. In these respects, Christ was a 
man of his own age and nation — believing and speak- 
ing on all speculative topics — on every subject that 



THE DIVINE AND HUMAN IN CHRIST. 85 

stood outside the conscience and its eternal relations 
with God — like the multitude among whom he dwelt. 
Through this inevitable limitation of his intellec- 
tual being, he acted with more power and effect on 
the spiritual condition of his contemporaries ; and 
from the marked contrast between the grandeur 
and purity of his religion and the simplicity of 
his worldly wisdom, he has acquired a more than 
earthly influence over the mind of ensuing gen- 
erations. The unrivalled pre-eminence of his spirit- 
ual example we cannot now deprive of its claim to a 
higher reverence, by imputing it to extraordinary 
philosophic culture or the perceptions of an intellect 
raised far above the standard of his time. 

For his authority as a prophet, it was necessary, 
that Christ should have lived among us as a brother, 
in the bosom of our human sorrows and joys ; it was 
necessary also, to raise us above our earthly life, that 
he should wear our nature without contracting impu- 
rity — gentle and sinless as some celestial visitant — 
in uninterrupted communion with God. This per- 
fect unison of the natural and the spiritual — such a 
contrast to the ordinary condition of the human soul- 
was discerned from the first with a mingled rever- 
ence and love, by all who contemplated his char- 
acter : but the proper value and due relation of the 
two elements were soon misunderstood ; and contro- 
versies thence arose which have ever since distracted 
the Church. Natural and spiritual were interpreted 
as human and divine : human and divine were next 
translated into man and God : and then the question 
came, how natures of such immeasurable disparity 



86 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



could co-exist in one person. To restore harmony 
where all seemed incurable discord, this expedient 
was resorted to : one element was exalted almost to 
the annihilation of the other. An extreme section of 
Alexandrine theologians made Christ all God, and 
in their excess of mysticism, dissolved his humanity 
into a name. Some divines more exclusively intel- 
lectual reduced him to a mere man,* into whose 
mind certain dogmas had been specially injected, 
that he might become the head of a new religious 
school, but whose intimate union with God, beyond 
the needs of that particular function, they did not ad- 
mit. In this view, the peculiar beauty of Christ's 
character, as executing its Messianic function in a 
succession of moral conquests through entire sympa- 
thy with the Divine Spirit, is wholly lost ; for it with- 
holds from him that general, constant, all-pervading 
intercourse with God, which alone fulfils our idea of 
the highest prophet of humanity, and justifies the as- 
sertion of that oneness with God, so distinctly claimed 
for him by Scripture. The Catholic Church, true to 
its maxim of suppressing heresy by combining con- 
tradictions, put an end to the controversy by its au- 
thoritative promulgation of the doctrine of two na- 

* This view of Christ's nature was expressed by the term, ipiXdg 
auBpuiros. Some parties holding the doctrine and distinguished for 
their devotion to human science, had a separate church in Rome at 
the beginning of the third century. They were called from their prin- 
cipal teachers, Theodotians or Artemonites, and were simple Human- 
itarians. They declared, that their opinions were those of the apos- 
tles, and had ever been regarded as such, till the time of Victor, 
Bishop of Rome, a. d. 185. An account of them is given by Euse- 
bius, Hist. Eccles., V. 38. 



THE DIVINE AND HUMAN IN CHRIST. 



87 



tures, one finite the other infinite, and each perfect, 
in one person. To express this astounding doctrine 
it created the strange term, God-man. The union of 
natural and spiritual elements which in Christ's life 
so beautifully realises the highest conditions of man's 
terrestrial existence — was thus turned by the per- 
verseness of theological subtilty, into an absurdity. 
Perfect God must mean the whole of God and nothing 
but God ; perfect man, the entire man and only man. 
The two natures are completely distinct. The attri- 
butes which constitute the essence of the one — eterni- 
ty, infinity, absolute knowledge and absolute power — 
exclude their opposites which enter into the definition 
of the other. If persons mean — as to be intelligible, 
it must — the possession of one consciousness and one 
will, it is evident, that natures so immeasurably dis- 
tant, so irreconcilably unlike, as God and man, can- 
not have a common subsistence in one person. 

Let us turn from the Church to the Gospel — from 
the nicely-poised determinations of Leo* to the 
broad and simple statements of the Evangelists-— 
and be content to accept the facts, so accordant with 
the inner witness of our own being, which they dis- 
tinctly hold up to our view. The beautiful narra- 
tive from "which our text is taken, strikingly exhibits 
the operation of the two elements which I have de- 
scribed, in the mind of our Lord. We see him 
wrestling with distrust and fear — -striving after, and 

* The letter of Pope Leo I. to the patriarch Flavian, settled the 
doctrine of the two natures, and placed it in that inappreciable centre 
between divergent heresies, where it was ultimately fixed by the de- 
cision of the Council of Chalcedon, a. d.451. 



88 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



at length securing, a divine peace. So viewed, this 
passage of his life becomes a lesson full of comfort 
and of joy for us. The terrible trial was at hand. 
His prophetic eye discerned the ghastly forms of 
woe, as they came thickening on him through the 
night : and for the moment his soul was exceeding 
sorrowful even unto death. He had not one near, 
on whom he could rely. A sense of desolation and 
loneliness came over him. His companions were 
wearied and asleep ; and he withdrew from them, 
to seek counsel and solace with the one unfailing 
Friend. He felt a weight on his soul. He knew 
what a duty God had cast on him, and anticipated 
the great issues that were depending on its faithful 
execution. Its magnitude enhanced his fears, and 
made him doubt himself. He was troubled also by 
the weakness and irresolution and childish unpre- 
paredness of those whose thoughts he had tried to 
raise to the height of his own great cause, and to in- 
spire with courage and self-possession proportionate 
to the coming danger and trial. It was the hour of 
his enemies. The power of darkness was upon him. 
His highest faith was momentarily eclipsed. Pre- 
sence of mind, strength of purpose, capacity of en- 
durance — all seemed to be giving way. Nothing 
remained, but to throw himself on God — for human 
weakness to lay hold of the divine strength. Hu- 
mility and devout submission were the virtues that 
now culminated in his soul. They checked all rash- 
ness ; they beat clown all presumption ; they broke 
forth in that one deep and earnest prayer — 4 Father, 
if thou be willing, remove this cup from me ; never- 



THE DIVINE AND HUMAN IN CHRIST. 89 

theless not my will, but thine be done.' In that 
breathing of profound and self-renouncing humility 
— in that entire reference of all things to God — went 
forth the word that brought back strength to the 
failing spirit. Sad and solemn rose its accents to 
heaven on the stillness of the midnight aii — with 
ever-deepening fervour as the sense of weakness and 
peril grew ; — till God's presence was fully realised, 
and a helping angel stood at his side ; and then all 
was calm — and the terror passed away. And so it 
is ever with man, when the highest duties test his al- 
legiance, and perils at which the stoutest quake, are 
a condition of their performance. There is a fear- 
ful struggle within, that bewilders the brain and 
makes the heart sick ; till the will is firmly fixed, 
and the final resolve is taken, and God is trusted 
and obeyed with implict faith. Then strength enters 
the soul, and the Spirit conquers. This is that vic- 
tory of faith ' which overcometh the world.' 

Rarely is this highest of victories achieved with- 
out terrible accompaniments even of bodily exhaus- 
tion and pain. The flesh sympathises with the 
struggles of its nobler companion. Sweat and blood 
attest the inward agonj^. The immortal overpowers 
the perishable. The ethereal spark is too quick and 
strong for its earthly vehicle, which melts and 
wastes away before its consuming energy. Yea, 
our very infirmities bear witness to the might of the 
spirit, which tramples on the body, and subjugates 
it to its will, and asserts its own kindred with the 
eternal and divine. When the agony has been un- 
dergone, and the conflict is past— sweet indeed is 
5* 



90 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

the final peace. It is the peace of conscious strength, 
reposing after victory, and calmly awaiting the cer- 
tain issue of God's merciful providence. Then 
comes the assurance of faith and principle — the 
steadfast resolve — the hand prepared for every good 
and noble work — the soothed and trusting spirit that 
shrinks no more at the aspect of danger, but looks 
out on all things with an eye of quiet and hopeful 
love. Then the martyr-soul goes back from the so- 
litude of prayer and faces the world anew, filled 
with a holier vigilance and tenderer solicitude for 
those who are yet weak and timorous and dull ; and 
when it finds them £ sleeping for sorrow,' it puts 
words of warning in their ear, and cries — * Why 
sleep ye ? rise and pray, lest ye enter into tempta- 
tion.' Then — whatever may yet remain of pain and 
grief and peril for its further trial, it can meet it all 
without dismay. "With spiritual insight it discerns 
in these things, the orderings of that invisible hand 
which it rejoices to own and obey — the transitory 
process of earthly discipline, which is still needed 
to draw out its strength and complete its purifica- 
tion — a renewed chastening of yet unvanquished 
passions and infirmities, that it may enter with en- 
larged capacities of action and enjoyment on its im- 
mortal heritage. Though earlier associates in the 
work of God should forsake it and relapse into the 
world, it is disquieted no more. Its human sym- 
pathies are with them still, and its prayers go up 
for them in love to heaven. From all disappoint- 
ments and sorrows it has a refuge in God. A holy 
tranquillity possesses it. In desertion and solitude 



THE DIVINE AND HUMAN IN CHRIST. 91 

it is sustained by the thought — 4 1 am not alone, for 
the Father is with me.' 

Such is the significance of the scene in Gethse- 
mane. It exhibits the highest form of humanity 
sustaining the heaviest load of woe, and displays the 
strength and peace that result from the triumph of 
the spiritual over the natural man. "Who can look 
back on this scene without an increase of love and 
reverence and trust? Who can behold in Christ 
such a beautiful harmony of the human and divine, 
without feeling it a glory to partake of a nature like 
his, and acknowledging with a deeper gratitude and 
more solemn awe the inspirations of the Parent 
Spirit which are the source of all that is good in 
him and us ? If we substitute for this view, the 
orthodox theory of his nature and of the conflicts it 
underwent in the closing scenes of his life — we 
meet with nothing that is in harmony with our hu- 
man consciousness, or expresses the universal and 
enduring relations of man and God. A single, un- 
paralleled prodigy is offered us instead, which may 
work on the imagination, but finds no response in 
the interior sense of our moral being. To estimate 
even the divine, we must rise out of the bosom of 
our familiar humanities. Our native feeling of 
moral fitness has been deadened by the artificial 
treatment of theology. Were deep-fixed associations 
removed, which have been engrained in our minds 
by the systematic teaching of centuries — no parent 
could look with approval on a history which sets 
before us the agony of a guiltless child, bearing the 
weight of others' sins to satisfy the inexorable de- 



92 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

mands of a Father's wrath. We should rather think 
of Christ as wearing our nature, not as a penal robe, 
but in proof of its native excellence and destined 
glory — to make us partakers of his own divine spirit 
— to lead us on through life's trials and difficulties — 
and introduce us into the happier scenes of our 
Father's courts above, 

"We need increased sympathy with the spirit of 
Christ. We require to be constantly roused by his 
warning voice. Too often we lie oppressed and 
drowsy on the ground of duty, when danger is 
near and unsuspected temptation is stealing upon us, 
We resign ourselves to a world of dreams, and let 
great opportunities go by: and when principle de- 
mands resistance and self-sacrifice, we betake our- 
selves to ignominious flight. "We too easily persuade 
ourselves, that life is a pleasant and easy task. It is 
an awful mistake. Is Heaven so slight a boon, that 
we can leisurely walk up to it and appropriate it in 
a life of comfortable sloth and self-indulgence ? Vir- 
tue, it is true, carries its own recompense along with 
it ; but it must grow out of labour and self-discipline. 
"When these have become a second nature, and 
brought the natural and spiritual into perfect harmo- 
ny, then, and not till then do they surround our be- 
ing with a perpetual bliss. In the most favoured of 
outward conditions and with the happiest native 
temperament, life's great purpose cannot be accom- 
plished without the strenuous exertion of all our 
faculties — without constant vigilance, and perpetual 
sacrifice of personal inclination, and unceasing re- 
sistance to evil without and within. The best men 



THE DIVINE AND HUMAN IN CHRIST. 93 

are they who have made the greatest effort for truth 
and right, and drawn wisdom out of the sorest trials. 
Our nature will not bear a softer treatment in this 
life. Unbroken ease with exemption from disap- 
pointment and trial, and immediate command of 
all the sources of enjoyment — relaxes the springs of 
virtuous activity, nourishes the taint of selfishness, 
and makes life a tasteless experience. The soul is 
nursed for heaven by the discipline of a sacred sor- 
row. The look that is fixed on immortality, wears 
not a perpetual smile ; and eyes through which 
shine the light of other worlds, are often dimmed 
with tears. And yet when the countenance is ear- 
nest and sad, unutterably blessed — not to be barter- 
ed for any earthly good — may be the peace within. 
"What could we take in exchange for pure and noble 
principles — for faith unfailing — for love unquencha- 
ble — for that spirit of prayer which goes up unceas- 
ing to the Father, and brings down his silent bless- 
ing on the heart? Child of affliction, bewail not 
thy lot. Seek out the wisdom that is hidden in 
it. Pursue with firm step and steadfast aim, the 
immortal issue to which it leads. Cherish the 
peace thou wilt ever find in a pure and loving 
heart. Thy Master was a man of sorrows and ac- 
quainted with grief, yet the peace of God filled his 
spirit in the agony of Gethsemane and the death- 
struggle of the Cross. 



VI. 



THE DISTINCTIVE AND PERMANENT IN 
CHRISTIANITY. 

Hebrews, xiii. 8. 
<l Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, and to-day, and forever." 

It has been the practice of apologists to separate 
Christianity by as marked a distinction as possible, 
from every other form of Keligion, and to represent 
it as a fact sui generis in the order of Providence : — 
the stupendous efficacy imputed to it, and the start- 
ling array of prophecy and miracle alleged on its 
behalf, seeming equally to sustain its extraordinary 
character, and by their very contrariety to the nat- 
ural course of things, to give it an overwhelming 
claim on the reverence and submission of mankind. 
This position, however, it has been found impossi- 
ble to maintain in its original integrity, against the 
invincible remonstrances of reason and the cease- 
less advance of science. Each generation has wit- 
nessed, with the diffusion of knowledge, a constant 
subdual of tone in the champions of revealed reli- 
gion ; and capitulation is now sometimes talked of, 
where uncompromising defiance was once hurled 
back on the hostilities of the secular intelligence. 
On the other hand, in the same degree that Christian- 
ity is made more human and more natural, brought 



THE PERMANENT IN CHRISTIANITY. 95 

more within the limits of the universal agencies of 
Providence, and reduced to the level of our ordinary 
sympathies and apprehensions — it appears to lose 
the distinctive character which should signalise it 
as a direct communication from God, and simply to 
fill its place as one among many provisions equally 
divine for the moral and spiritual culture of our 
race. "We seem thus caught within the horns of a 
dilemma. If we assume the old ground, and insist 
on peculiarity — if we assert that Christianity is a 
fact apart from all other facts, having an origin, a 
doctrine and a warrant exclusively its own — we put 
ourselves in opposition to the general reason and 
conscience of mankind, and as the spirit of self-reli- 
ance spreads, and larger views of the Universe be- 
gin to prevail, we must expect to see an ever-increas- 
ing number of thoughtful and serious men abandon 
our cause and join the ranks of unbelief. If again 
we regard the whole of Providence as an equal man- 
ifestation of Deity — if we look on Christ's ministry, 
not as the introduction of a new and special mode 
of human treatment, but merely as an element of 
more than ordinary moral influence embraced, con- 
templated and provided for in the general system of 
the world — we deny the power of revelation to pro- 
claim a new law to our spiritual being, and seem 
bound in consistency to abandon much of the lan- 
guage that is popularly used respecting it. 

This is a question of great interest, deeply inter- 
woven with the difficulties which at the present time 
perplex many a devout and earnest mind. Let us 
turn our attention to it, and see what light can ba 



96 CHKISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

thrown on it. The ultimate test and assurance of 
Christianity, as of every other doctrine that is offered 
to the acceptance of mankind, must be found in its 
agreement with the universal and irreversible laws 
of our mental and moral being. Our own nature is 
the first and nearest of all realities — the corner-stone 
of the entire fabric of truth. It is a prior authority 
to any communication that can be brought to us from 
without. If it be so weak or so corrupt that no trust 
can be* reposed in its instinctive beliefs and inevita- 
ble conclusions, it cannot judge of the trustworth- 
iness of statements made to it by others. By the 
supposition it is incapable of distinguishing between 
truth and falsehood ; and the argument that would 
infer the indispensableness of divine revelation from 
the assumed impotency of human reason, is-self-de- 
structive. If it be affirmed, that man's nature is 
miraculously changed by faith ; who is to decide on 
the reality of the miracle ? The assurance can at 
least belong only to those who are the subjects of it. 
By the fact of their change, they are insulated from 
the general mass of human nature. The unchanged 
remain in their previous state of helpless incapacity. 
J$o effect can be produced on them by the experi- 
ence of others ; and a process of which they have no 
conception, they will be quite as likely to ascribe to 
delusion as to miracle. 

In what sense, then do we assert, that Religion 
is natural to man, and has its origin and warrant in 
the primary laws of his being ? We must distin- 
guish here between those spontaneous tendencies 
which grow out of our original constitution, and 



THE PERMANENT IN CHRISTIANITY. 



97 



necessarily determine our ideas to associate them- 
selves in a particular order and issue in a parti- 
cular result, and those inferences which the logical 
faculty derives from the facts collected by experi- 
ence, and generalised by the laws of association just 
described. — Religion is at first a spontaneous feeling 
in man's mind ; only at a later period, is it aided in 
its development by the auxiliary operations of rea- 
son. It is not contended, that the new-born babe 
brings with it into the world, the ideas of a God, a 
moral government and a future life — as they exist 
in the mature mind of an intelligent and well-in- 
formed Christian : but simply that it possesses in the 
rudiments of its mental organisation, a seed and 
radicle of spiritual growth, which, exposed to the 
needful stimulus of outward impression, shoots up 
and blossoms and fructifies through an inherent ne- 
cessity,' into more or less perfect forms of moral and 
religious belief. The point to be insisted on is the 
inwardness of spiritual conviction — that it does not 
depend for its existence on the accident of external 
instruction, nor owe its certainty to the conclusive- 
ness of any inferences deducible from facts that fall 
under the cognizance of sense. Three grand princi- 
ples of belief which lie at the foundation of our ra- 
tional being, arise in this manner out of the internal 
and organic working of the mind — the recognition 
of a Supreme Intelligence in all things — reverence 
for the moral law mirrored in the human conscience, 
as an expression of his Will — and the expectation of 
some future state where the realities of man's condi- 
tion will be more in accordance with the ideal after 



98 CHBISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

which he is formed to aspire. These principles in 
their origin are little more than the material for be- 
lief—dim yearnings and vague apprehensions which 
are drawn out and fashioned by the understanding 
according to the extent and character of its own de- 
velopment, and finally cast into permanent formulas, 
as a standard for the popular religion, by the plastic 
agency of some powerful mind. It is evident, that 
reason would have nothing whereon to act, if certain 
indisputable data were not included in the primary 
intuitions of consciousness. There must be a limit 
somewhere. We must come to assumptions at last. 
If we cannot trust, and will not accept, the sponta- 
neous and universal suggestions of our own nature 
— even when fruitful of consequences that are in 
harmony with experience and reasoning — nothing 
remains for us but self-surrender to hopeless scepti- 
cism. 

It is important to notice in this connexion the dif- 
ferent functions of the prophet and the philosopher 
— two characters, that have exerted a powerful influ- 
ence on the actions and opinions of mankind. The 
prophet deals with the primary intuition ; the phi- 
losopher, with the secondary generalisation and 
remoter inference. — The prophet gives the incentives 
to action ; the philosopher supplies matter for reflec- 
tion. — One recurs to the heart and the conscience 
as his medium of influence ; the other addresses 
himself to pure intellect. The prophet operates on 
masses of men, and fills them with a new life, and 
sends up from them a wide, pervading influence — an 
exhalation as it were from the popular heart — which 



THE PEEMANENT EST CHRISTIANITY. 99 



silently penetrates the whole length and breadth of 
Society. The philosopher speaks a higher language 
intelligible only to the select and initiated few : he 
has his favourite modes of expression and peculiar 
processes of thought, which wear an irreligious 
aspect in the eyes of the multitude, and inspire 
them with superstitious aversion ; and he must 
trust to the changes of future years, for trans- 
mitting 'any portion of the light which he has struck 
out, into the dense shades of error and prejudice 
which are spread over immense spaces in the realms 
of mind. — Yet these two characters, placed as they 
are at the opposite extremes of Society, maintain an 
unbroken and mysterious communication with each 
other, and reciprocally furnish the conditions of 
their safe and healthful action on the excitable at- 
mosphere of humanity. — The prophet brings out 
and cherishes its moral elements-— its living sense of 
God and duty and immortality — and delivers to his 
distant co-operator the broad, unquestionable facts 
of human consciousness, which he needs as a sure 
basis for his speculations. The philosopher, on the 
other side, cautiously accepting the material trans- 
mitted to him, explores it with the keen edge of his 
analysis, and pares off from the vital substance of 
truth the impure accretions which it has contracted 
in the grosser atmosphere of the popular belief, and 
which must check its growth and expansion when 
placed in the thin pure air of a higher region. — And 
so they work into each other's hands : — the prophet 
mightily active below in the broad dark depths of 
the world, amidst the strong instinctive impulses — 



100 CHRISTIAN" ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

the sorrows, weaknesses and sins — of ordinary men ; 
the philosopher serenely contemplative on the soli- 
tary illuminated peak which towers into the ; skies, 
with a few gifted spirits at his side and his eye rang- 
ing over a vast horizon — transmitting at intervals 
some higher intelligence to the toiling multitudes 
that are spread over the vast plains at his feet. 
Their work, however, is progressive : they will not 
always be at the same distance from each other. — 
From opposite sides their operations slowly approxi- 
mate, and tend towards future union in a common 
field, — where facts attested by the universal con- 
sciousness which no scepticism can deny, will be 
finally accepted by the experienced and disciplined 
intellect, and wrought out into conclusions which the 
most fastidious philosophy will be glad to admit. 
Then at length the nuptials of faith and reason, so 
long desired and so long deferred, will be celebrated 
amid the jubilees of a reconciled and rejoicing 
creation. 

The subject leads us to speak now of the pro- 
phetic character. Christianity is a manifestation 
and a result of the prophetic spirit. — It is the dis- 
tinction of the prophet, not only to possess the pri- 
mary religious intuitions in peculiar vividness and 
intensity, but to have the power of quickening them 
into new life in other minds, and of irradiating with 
their influence all his representations of man's du- 
ties and destiny. This prophetic faculty is a gift 
from God — an effect of that closer intimacy which 
some minds are permitted to hold with the Sove- 
reign Spirit. In no other light can we regard it. — 



THE PERMANENT IN CHRISTIANITY. 101 



It is an endowment original and inexplicable — not 
to be attained by study or thoughtfulness or the 
treasures of Science. 4 The spirit bloweth where it 
listeth, and thou canst not tell whence it cometh, or 
whither it goeth.' — It may have been — there is 
strong historical testimony, that it was — in the ear- 
lier ages of the world, accompanied by outward 
signs and wonders. These, however, are not neces- 
sary adjuncts to its existence. It may exhibit its 
genuine power and operation without them. Speci- 
fically calling into exercise only one element in the 
manifold nature of man, it would be unreasonable to 
expect of the prophetic gift, that it should in the 
same measure fill the intellect with scientific light. 
Its office is simply to give a right moral impulse to 
the intellect, and throw it into the direction in which 
it ought to work. Unavoidably, therefore, in remo- 
ter periods, all prophetic manifestations, whether in 
the shape of doctrine, ritual or institution — though 
ever possessing at bottom some elements of primary 
truth — have blended themselves with the error and 
ignorance of the times and shot up into divers forms 
of superstition. — Hence a need for the later opera- 
tions of reason, to separate the true from the false — 
to retain the divine, and cast away the purely hu- 
man. Reason has not, however, always recognised 
the pro]3er limits of its task, but occasionally carried 
the work of destruction into the very substance of 
truth itself. — In the infancy of the world, when rea- 
son was weak and knowledge very limited, and 
men, like children, were thrown more on the in- 
stincts of their nature — the prophetic faculty must 



102 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

have been far more widely exercised than the zeal- 
ous advocates of particular revelations are willing to 
admit, in disseminating the elements of moral and 
spiritual culture and building up from its founda- 
tions the great fabric of society. — Surveyed in this 
broader view, we may regard the Mosaic and Chris- 
tian dispensations as pre-eminent examples of a gen- 
eral type of phenomena — the purest and most pow- 
erful manifestations of a spirit that is co-extensive 
in some degree with humanity itself, making man, 
wherever he exists, essentially a religious being, 
capable of sympathy and intercourse with the Om- 
nipresent Mind. 

It remains to be shown — what there is distinc- 
tive in Christianity ; why it has claims on our trust 
and reverence above other religions ; how it stands 
out from the universal religious principle with a 
character of its own ; how it calls forth and realises 
to the individual consciousness, at once in the great- 
est purity and with a surpassing power, those pri- 
mary intuitions of a living God — a divine law — and 
a future retributory existence — which are the essence 
of all religion. The foundations of Christianity were 
laid broad and deep in the doctrines of Hebrew pro- 
phecy : — that there was only one God, the universal 
Spirit ; — that he sustained a close personal relation, 
as moral governor, to those whom He had constitut- 
ed his people ; — that the distinction between them 
and other nations was temporary; — and that in the 
coming kingdom of God — that grand theme of pro- 
phetic promise and encouragement — the converted 
Gentiles would be united with the worshippers of 



THE PERMANENT EST CHRISTIANITY. 103 

Jehovah, in one blessed and glorious society. Out 
of these rudiments Jesus and his followers expanded 
a religion for the world. The national God of the 
Jews became the Father of mankind. The narrow 
peculiarity of a favored race was enlarged into the 
brotherhood of all men. For the promise of earthly 
prosperity, gross and perishable, was substituted the 
more glorious prospect of an endless life in heaven. 
All these doctrines, it is true, were set forth origi- 
nally from the Jewish point of view, and adjusted 
to the Jewish belief and capacity of that first age. 
They could not else have come into contact with hu- 
manity or exerted on it any living power. But 
under this outward form, was transmitted a vital 
principle, capable of growth and self-development, 
which Providence by manifold excitements and 
under guiding influences, has drawn out age after 
age into successive results of practical and doctrinal 
wisdom for the nourishment of the soul. Through 
every phasis of manifestation the fundamental truths 
have subsisted in their essential strength for all who 
earnestly sought them. 

What, then, was the actual process of the great 
change now wrought in society ? The preaching of 
a crucified "man ; — sympathy with a loving, sinless, 
self-sacrificing life ; faith in a perfect virtue, vic- 
torious over death, crowned with glory in heaven, 
manifesting the presence and the power of the hea- 
venly Father amidst the sin and suffering of the 
world. And what has been the permanent result? 
A communion of minds subsisting under many out- 
ward forms, but still held together, amid great di- 



104: CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

versity of usage and opinion, by the closest spiritual 
ties — the same high trust in God, the same clinging 
of the heart to Christ, the same earnest endeavour to 
sanctify life's trials and duties, by making them a 
discipline of the immortal soul for heaven. Such is 
the Church of Christ. It is a communion of good 
and earnest men who are drawn to God in Christ's 
spirit and by the attraction of Christ's life. Ex- 
perience shows, that there is strong need of a 
Church — of a community of religious exercises and 
influences — for the moral and spiritual culture of 
man's nature. It is a significant fact, that no civi- 
lised people ever yet existed without a public wor- 
ship representative of the general faith. Our pious 
affections, our incentives to virtuous action, our 
hope, our trust, our love — are all cherished and 
strengthened by religious sympathy and religious 
intercourse. A Church is the embodiment in out- 
ward forms and joint devotions of our common re- 
ligion. But a religion for the many cannot be fur- 
nished by an abstract exhibition of moral and reli- 
gious truth. It must have its root in actual history ; 
it must pass into some concrete reality, as a bond of 
permanent association — the fixed centre of human 
sympathies and a definite object of human rever- 
ence and love. It needs a visible authorship and 
head, to invest it with a distinctive character — to 
make it the consecration of our retrospect of the 
past — to wrap it in the rich and ample folds of hal- 
lowed remembrance and venerable association — and 
hand it down from age to age, the best inheritance 
of fathers to their children. 



THE PERMANENT IN CHRISTIANITY. 105 

Mere science is incapable of such influences. 
~No man reverences grammar or geometry as a tra- 
dition. Science is to each individual essentially a 
creation of the present. But history and memory 
enter into all our conceptions of a Church, and are 
indispensable to its specific effect on the human 
heart. In the peculiar character, therefore, of a 
Church's power over the mind, we discover the 
source of many noble, tender and delightful emo- 
tions : — emotions, however, which for the very rea- 
son that they are so deeply human, require to be 
carefully watched, lest they should engender the 
seeds of superstitious formalism and priestly domi- 
nation. Observe, then, how beautifully Christianity 
in its genuine simplicity has provided for the want 
and guarded against the perversion. In the first 
place, it has nowhere expressly constituted a Church, 
but left such a result to the free spontaneous growth 
of its own creative spirit. Our religion, moreover, 
though issuing from a divine source, comes to us 
through a human channel — through the medium of 
a brother man, true to conscience, faithful in duty, 
perfected by suffering, exalted to heaven. Our 
bond of Christian union lies not in outward cere- 
monial and metaphysical dogma, but in the holiest 
and loftiest of all sentiments — in the love and re- 
verence of virtue itself — in owning God our Father, 
under the most benignant of his manifestations — as 
He reveals Himself in the moral excellence of a 
pure and exalted human soul. While we cleave to 
the genuine spirit of our religion, the most fervent 
devotion cannot pass into superstition, but will only 
6 



106 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

incite us to stronger efforts after new holiness. In 
the love of Christ, faith and duty are one principle. 
[Religions feeling reposes in peace on him ; and the 
religions life pervaded by his spirit, aspires through 
him to be one in aim and effort with the sovereign 
will of God. 

Christianity so understood combines in it all the 
conditions of a religion for mankind. It is histori- 
cal, and yet has a power of endless adaptation to 
the spiritual necessities of man's sonl. It holds out 
a definite object for the affections, and yet fixes no 
limit to the expansion of the sympathies and the 
freest exercise of the intellectual powers. It is pro- 
foundly devotional, and at the same time severely 
but humanely moral. Here at length Religion and 
Morality, so often kept wide asunder in the old 
sacerdotal systems, seem to have found their point 
of coalescence and to mingle in undistinguishable 
identity. In speaking of Christianity, I mean of 
course not the letter of its historical records, but the 
spirit of Christ's own life — -not the particular words 
he uttered or the particular acts he performed in the 
presence of that old Jewish civilisation of Galilee 
and J erusalem, but the intense consciousness of God 
and duty and eternal life which impregnated his 
whole being, and infused through his contagious in- 
fluence a new soul into humanity That living spirit 
of Christ we may imbibe by sympathy, and transfer 
to other scenes, and convert into the animating prin- 
ciple of very different duties. That spirit, how- 
ever disguised by the mystification of jarring phrases, 
will meet a response and a welcome from every 



THE PERMANENT IN CHRISTIANITY. 107 

pure and earnest nature : and in that spirit every 
existing indication conspires to assure us, that the 
elements of a religion for mankind can alone be 
found. But then we must not divorce the Religion 
from the history which gives it substance and reali- 
ty. We must not evaporate the concrete into the 
abstract. Religion exerts its influence not in ideas 
alone, but in the facts which are their visible coun- 
terpart — in the belief, that there was once a real 
Christ on earth — the perfection of human goodness 
— who taught and toiled and suffered and died, and 
then went to heaven in the spirit and power of God 
— that omnipresent Father, in whose name he spoke, 
and who encompasses us now, as he encompassed 
Jesus then, with the living tokens of his love. If 
we dissolve this spiritual communion with Christ, 
how shall we again gather together in one the scat- 
tered individualities of men's souls ? Where shall 
we again find a head, a centre, a point of universal 
sympathy ? Unrestrained by any combining in- 
fluence, speculation will start off in a thousand di- 
vergent directions, on its headlong, wilful career. 
Hard intellects will engage in unprofitable gladia- 
torship ; and the competitors for a mastery over 
human spirits will divide the world into innumer- 
able sections of antagonistic opinion. Such an anti- 
cipation is no mere suggestion of arbitrary fancy ; 
and it furnishes a strong argument for the preserva- 
tion of Christianity. We acquire a new perception 
of its truth, and of its necessity in the order of Pro- 
vidence, from representing to ourselves the conse- 
quences of its annihilation. 



108 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

I must add a few words in conclusion on the spe- 
cific authority of Christ. We have seen, that Reli- 
gion has its proper seat in the primary intuitions of 
consciousness, and that it is the function of the pro- 
phet, to call forth those intuitions into more vivid 
operation. The prophet does not convince us by 
strength of reasoning. We do not yield up our 
assent to his arguments, and measure it out by our 
sense of their weakness or their force ; but he com- 
mands our whole being at .once by a resistless ap- 
peal to principles within. He carries our inmost 
sympathies along with him, by the self-evidencing 
power of his doctrine, by the sanctity of his life, by 
the serene majesty of his spirit, by the intense con- 
viction that lives and breathes in his words. It may 
be questioned, whether the very ablest exhibition 
of what are called the Evidences of Christianity, 
ever made a person really feel the true authority of 
Christ. But take up the simple memorials of his 
life, when your mind is in a tender and serious 
mood — and in imagination open your ears to the 
calm, majestic accents of his voice, as he delivers 
one of his beautiful parables, or rebukes the self- 
complacent Pharisee, or speaks peace to the repent- 
ant sinner — or go with him into the chamber of 
death, when he bids the sleeping damsel arise, and 
gives her back to the arms of the heart-stricken pa- 
rent, and tells him Death is but a sleep — or suppose 
yourself at that last Supper, when he is distributing 
the bread and the cup, and uttering his words of 
parting counsel and benediction— and let these hal- 
lowed influences fall gently on a simple, childlike^ 



THE PERMANENT IN CHRISTIANITY. 109 

confiding heart ; you will then feel what his author- 
ity is, and you will bow your soul before it, as a 
power from Heaven. You will feel, that it is the 
power which goodness and truth and the conscious- 
ness of a divine presence, must ever exert. It is 
the power which religious virtue always exerts to 
the extent that it is earnest and real, and which in 
Christ was so mighty to convert and to save, because 
in him virtue has no human parallel. In taking 
this view of the authority of Christ, we need not 
contend for any transcendental doctrine of absolute 
immaculateness from the birth. Christ's was a gen- 
uine, natural virtue ; in making it unhuman, we 
only make it unreal. It is sufficient for the prac- 
tical Christian, without plunging into the unfathom- 
able metaphysics of theology — to feel that such vir- 
tue is far, far above his own, and yet what he himself 
must daily aspire after, if he would become a better 
and happier man. 

"When Christ took leave of his followers, he pro- 
mised the Spirit to fill his vacant place, as their fu- 
ture Comforter and Guide : and that Spirit still 
abides with the true members of his universal 
Church. Scripture is the vehicle which conveys 
it to us, and through which it is dispensed and 
applied to every believing heart. But the true 
Church — the Church of mankind — cannot be nour- 
ished from a book alone, however beautiful and 
however wise. It demands a living ministry — the 
living influence of speech and act. It needs faith- 
ful, earnest, simple-hearted and devoted men — un- 
fettered by creeds, unenslaved by forms, unawed 



110 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



by hierarchies — imbibing the spirit of Christ into 
their deepest souls, and left free to impart it in their 
own way, according to their own convictions, in 
words of power and genuine sincerity. O may such 
men speedily arise for the guidance and blessing of 
their race — strong in faith, strong in love, strong in 
knowledge and intellectual power — to dispel doubt, 
to chase away indifference, to establish conviction, 
to assert the great cause of humanity and God, and 
to bind up in the enduring ties of a brotherly affec- 
tion the broken peace and wasted energies of the 
Church of Christ ! Through their lips may the 
Comforter go forth with new power among men, 
and guide thousands of troubled and doubting spi- 
rits to the truth which they seek, but cannot find ! 
And we — who endure the hour of darkness and 
strife, and dimly discern the breaking of a brighter 
morn, and faintly herald its approach, — O grant 
that we, Thou God of mercy and of truth, feeble as 
we are, may be true to our convictions and earnest 
according to our strength, that when our summons 
comes, we may lay down our charge in the humble 
trust, that we have done what we could, and leave 
the great issue with Thee ! 



VIL 



THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHRIST. 
1 Peter, ii. 21. 

. ** Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should 
folbw his steps." 

The wonderful life of Christ, with its vast trans- 
forming influence on the moral condition of the 
world, has been viewed in two different lights by 
those who have looked back on it with reverence 
through the lengthening vale of time. They have 
interpreted it in a mystical or in a rational sense. 
They have beheld in it either a descent of God to 
man, or an elevation of man towards God ; and 
they have adopted exclusively one or the other of 
these points of view, without attempting to reconcile 
them. In the former theory, as conceived by the 
reputedly orthodox, Christ's mediation involves a 
stupendous and convulsive miracle, which affects 
the entire spiritual economy of the universe, re- 
versing the previous relations of Deity to man- 
kind, and restoring the moral balance of creation. 
Christ steps into the place of God. The glory 
of his mediatorial ofhce eclipses the brightness of 
the paternal throne. The divine attributes of his 
character absorb the moral and the human. He is 
too high for our sympathy and our imitation. We 



112 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

stand afar off, overwhelmed with amazement and 
awe. Reason is confounded ; and human affection 
is changed into religions ecstacy. The rationalist^ 
on the other hand, disperses this mythic cloud, and 
through the clear transparent light of the under- 
standing, discerns the definite outline of a human 
teacher and guide — a man labouring among fellow- 
men — a gifted sage, sent by God on an errand of 
mercy to the world, to give us wise and good pre- 
cepts, and show us by his example the road to hea- 
ven. If this view be less kindling to the imagina- 
tion, it better satisfies the reason, and more wins 
the heart. 

Each of these conceptions of the person and work 
of Christ has, however, by natural reaction pushed 
the other into excess. Each has its side of truth , 
and represents a want and tendency of man ? s souL 
For we may contemplate our relation to invisible 
things, wholly from the divine or wholly from the 
human point of view ; and each survey will pass 
into error, simply from its exclusiveness — from its 
denial of the restraining influence of its needful 
counterpart. The system which converts Christ into 
absolute Deity, and supposes the whole spiritual 
world to have been revolutionised by his interposi- 
tion, will not bear the scrutiny of an earnest reason, 
and evaporates into empty formulas when the strong 
light of science and history is cast upon it. But 
then the theory which limits Christ's functions and 
influence to those of a mere man — which accepts his 
words as the simple dictates of human thoughtful- 
ness and sagacity — which measures the wisdom and 



THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHRIST. 



113 



the rationality of his outward life by its direct con- 
formity to the standard of our recognised morality — 
excludes the divine element altogether, and does not 
satisfy the demands of our religious nature. In 
the being whom we follow as our spiritual Guide, 
whom we accept as the Source of our spiritual life, 
as the Head of our Church — we naturally look for 
the indication of something divine. We suppose 
him to stand nearer to God than ourselves. He 
mediates for us between things divine and human, 
bridging over the abrupt chasm which separates 
them — and opens a new and living way to com- 
munion with the Father. How the example of such 
a being should influence us, and how we are to fol- 
low his steps — we must now show. 

It cannot be too often repeated, that the influ- 
ence of a prophet must be distinguished from that 
of a teacher. The teacher labours to persuade by 
arguments addressed to the reason. The prophet de- 
mands submission by an appeal to convictions al- 
ready within the breast. The teacher delivers his 
principles as wrought out by his own study and re- 
flection. The prophet proclaims his doctrines as 
truths which he is conscious of receiving direct from 
God. — He cannot indeed convince us of the fact, 
except by awakening a kindred consciousness in our- 
selves ; and this may at first view, seem to bring 
down his claims to the level of the ordinary teacher, 
by making our belief the test of their validity. — ■ 
But we can often perceive that to be true, and feel 
that to be right and beautiful, when once proposed 
to us, by a criterion inherent in our own spiritual 



114 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

nature, which we are conscious at the same time we 
could never have originated for ourselves, and which 
even while we accept it on the assurance of this in- 
terior sense, we distinctly recognise as something 
divine — something very far exceeding our previous 
and ordinary condition of thought and sentiment. 
We all experience a lower degree of the same effect 
from the finest strokes of the poet and the artist. 
For the influence of the genuine prophet is inspir- 
ing and even creative. — He does more than impart 
truth from himself. He awakens dormant sym- 
pathies and calls forth kindred elements to meet and 
embrace it, and incorporate it with the living sub- 
stance of the responsive soul. — And what holds of 
the prophet's doctrine, holds also of his life. For 
his doctrine and his life cannot be separated. His 
life is his doctrine in action. His doctrine is the 
theory of his life. Both command our reverence 
and our faith — not from their coincidence with con- 
clusions which we have deduced from premises al- 
ready embraced, but because they enlarge the basis 
of our conception of man's duty and destination, 
give us new and wider premises from which to rea- 
son — and by their kindling effect on the whole 
spiritual nature, infuse into it a fresher power and 
endue it with clearer insight. In such influences 
we intuitively discern the Spirit of God. They are 
the certain witness of a prophet's presence. 

In considerations like these, we find the proper 
answer to objections sometimes urged by men, in 
whose mind the logical element is too largely pre- 
dominant — that they cannot subject their reason to 



THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHKIST. 



115 



any human demands on faith, or write themselves 
servants of any one but God himself ; and that the 
life of Christ is placed before us in circumstances so 
peculiar — so deeply coloured by the accidents of his 
age and country and mission — as to unfit it for be- 
coming an example to men of other times and under 
different social relations. The difficulty springs from 
the same feeling as respects both the doctrine and 
the life — and admits of the same reply. It does 
not perceive, that the authority to which assent and 
subjection are demanded, is, by the supposition, 
divine and not human — that interior revelation — 
that sense of spiritual truth — which God's inspira- 
tion imparted to the original organism of the human 
soul, and which he has enabled the prophet, by a 
larger infusion of it into his own mind, to stimulate 
into greater vigour and activity. Whether such co- 
incidence can be discerned between what is offered 
from without and what is felt within, as to justify a 
submission to prophetic authority — must be left to 
the experience of each individual conscience. It is 
a case in which no one can judge for another. But 
the argument assumes, that such coincidence is dis- 
cerned, and that the submission, therefore, is yielded 
not to man but to God. The objection, again, does 
not sufficiently distinguish between a particular pre- 
cept necessarily shaped and adjusted to the occasion 
which called it forth, and the deeper spiritual prin- 
ciple which is at work in it — between a particular 
act, or even a particular course of action, modified as 
it must be by the conditions of co-existing circum- 
stance, and the general effort and tendency of the 



116 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY, 



whole life out of winch it sprang, and of which it 
can only be regarded as a limited and imperfect ex- 
pression. It is with the inner principle and general 
tendency alone, that the intuitions of religion and 
the claims of the prophet have any concern. The 
adaptation of particular precepts and particular acts 
to the changing exigencies of society, falls within 
the province of the practical reason. This obvious 
distinction, apart from which no religious record of 
the Past can be of any use to ensuing generations — - 
has been overlooked through the prevailing belief in 
the verbal inspiration of Scripture, and the conse- 
quent acceptance of Christianity as a positive legis- 
lation for men's conduct and opinions in detail. So 
closely has this feeling associated itself with the 
words and actions of Christ, that it still influences 
those who are no longer under the error which pro- 
duced it, and renders them unconsciously guilty of 
injustice in interpreting his history. 

Perhaps indeed we none of us conceive with suf- 
ficient distinctness, what it is that we mean, when 
we speak of taking Christ for our Pattern, Example, 
and Guide. A large portion of our sentiments re- 
specting him, is derived from religious poetry, or 
from the rhetorical language which so liberally gar- 
nishes the popular eloquence of the pulpit. Such 
influence has often been beneficial in its way, and 
very nutritive of the devout affections ; but it leaves 
behind it a vagueness of impression which throws 
a kind of mysterious haze over the relation of our 
Lord's example to the duty of ordinary Christians 
in the actual world. When thoughtful men, taking 



THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHEIST. 



117 



the standard which is usually applied to this subject, 
compare their own circumstances with those of 
Christ, and perceive the amazing disparity between 
them — when they consider his gifts, his vocation, 
the world in which he lived, the persons with whom 
he had to deal, the whole state of manners and 
opinion environing him, so different from that which 
now exists — and observe, that there is hardly one 
point in his recorded life, which finds its exact paral- 
lel in theirs — and yet hear divines Sunday after Sun- 
day in vague and pompous phrase calling on the 
people of this care-worn, money-getting, overla- 
boured nineteenth century, to shun riches and re- 
nounce the world to follow the steps of Christ and 
walk in all things as he walked : — they feel them- 
selves bewildered and almost mocked by exhorta- 
tions like these ; they cannot comprehend what such 
words mean in reference to themselves ; they would 
fain ask — 1 What is it you urge me to ? Consider 
my situation, and see if it be possible for me to do 
what you enjoin. Only show me, how in my cir- 
cumstances I can separate myself to a life of prayer 
and charity and abstinence from all worldly things— 
and I will strive to imitate that divine Exemplar, 
whose beauty I willingly confess, though I feel that 
at present it can have no immediate application to a 
lot like mine.' 

If, therefore, the prophetic influence which should 
go forth from the life of Christ, is still to exert its 
healing and renovating power, we must clear away 
the impossibilities which seem to come between it 
and the world ; we must show, how the words and 



118 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

acts of Christ, interpreted in their true and inward 
sense, may yet preserve a vital relationship to the 
wants and sorrows and holiest aspirations of the suf- 
fering humanity which at this day inhabits the earth. 
The distinction already made between fundamental 
principles and the words or acts which are their oc- 
casional expression, suggests the mode in which this 
relationship may be maintained. Too formal and 
prosaic a view is usually taken of what is meant by 
looking to a life or a character as a model. It must 
not be understood, that a pattern is held up before 
us to be servilely copied, but an ideal whose spirit 
should be freely imbibed. "What such an example 
can alone beneficially supply, is a new life infused 
into our convictions and blended with our own per- 
sonality. Any other influence would be destructive 
of moral freedom and check individual self-develop- 
ment. For what is it that constitutes the man, and 
stamps itself on our reverence as character ? Hot 
the manners of a person — not his speculative beliefs 
— not his opinions in religion or politics — not simply 
the kind of work to which he devotes himself, — 
these matters are often determined for him by the 
accident of his social position — but the spirit which 
is in operation beneath the surface of his life, and 
breaks forth in every outward expression of it — his 
honour, his purity, his faithfulness, his strong affec- 
tions, his expansive charity, his deep devotion, his 
zeal and constancy in the pursuit of what is great 
and noble. And so it is with Christ. What is it 
that thrills our hearts and kindles our imaginations 
in the remembrance of him, and makes us come 



THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHEIST. 



119 



away from every meditation of his history; more full 
of tender thoughtfulness and holy aspiration ? JSTot 
his outward bearing and manner of life — not his 
independence of a home and a secular vocation — 
not the particular strain in which he warned the 
erring and comforted the distressed — not the precise 
way in which he encountered his enemies and sub- 
mitted to his doom — not the little incidents of his 
journey ings and miracles and discourses, of his death 
and his re-appearance from the grave — for all these 
might be replaced by other circumstances and a dif- 
ferent fate, and the effect be still the same ; — but the 
spirit of fervent love, and patient trust, and stainless 
sanctity, and lofty hope, and religious devotedness, 
which shone through these external things, and has 
left on them the enduring brightness of its own 
glory. It is the inward life revealed through the 
outward life — the spirit of the character illuminating 
all its visible manifestations — which alone affords a 
fruitful subject of contemplation, and transferred by 
a reflective understanding to new circumstances, 
supplies a free and living rule for the guidance of 
our own course. 

One of the first effects of this emancipation from 
the dead letter of Christianity, will be deeper sym- 
pathy for many earnest and struggling minds, who 
feel all their moral energies crushed, and faith well 
nigh extinguished within them, by the dull and 
formal exhortation which they perpetually encounter, 
to conform their lives outwardly to the life of Christ. 
They are repelled from the effort, by a sense of its 
hopelessness. Our object, therefore, should be, so 



120 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

to open their minds and hearts to the true reading 
of that richly significant life, that they may cast off 
their scrupulousness, and enter, of themselves into 
spiritual communion with Christ, and feel what a 
virtue goes forth at every contact with his heavenly 
mind. Purer and simpler moral feeling, increased 
mental culture, a more open, rational and free inter- 
pretation of Scripture, continually referred to the 
eternal standard within the breast — will best effect 
this change, and carry thousands with undiminished 
fervour and seriousness out of their present spiritual 
bondage, to the enjoyment of the liberty which 
Christ's message, heard in the deep undertones of 
its eternal truth, proclaims to captive souls. 

The study of a great and holy life, as that of 
Christ — is like the study of a beautiful work of Art, 
for the cultivation of the taste and the discipline of 
genius ; with this fundamental distinction, however, 
between the two cases, that the latter appeals only 
to imagination and sensibility, the former acts upon 
the conscience and the will. But in both we equally 
think and feel ourselves into the hidden soul of pow- 
er in the work before us. Strong spiritual affinities 
are awakened within us as we gaze, admire and love. 
"We surrender our inmost soul to the profound sympa- 
thy it inspires — not to bring away in our memories, 
an exact transcript of its light and shade, the group- 
ing of its forms, and the blending of its hues — but to 
seize intuitively the eternal laws of beauty which it 
exemplifies, and the sense of which, thoroughly im- 
bibed, may enable us, though still at an humble 
distance, to put forth a different work in a kindred 



THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHRIST. 



121 



spirit. The servile hand of the copyist may retrace 
every line and reproduce every variation of colour ; 
but the life of the great original will not be there. 
Only he who can feel as the master felt, and has 
studied his works to catch their spirit, will strike 
out conceptions that betray the same inner life and 
admit of any comparison with his. The monk that 
fasted forty days, to rival Christ's temptation in 
the wilderness — the Pope who goes through the 
annual mockery of washing the feet of beggars— 
Melancthon who apprenticed himself to a baker, be- 
cause he thought Scripture literally enjoined him to 
eat bread in the s weat of his brow * — exhibit only 
the exaggeration of a principle which still pervades 
to no small extent the usages of some respectable 
sects, and tacitly restrains from the full exercise of 
spiritual liberty, not a few who fancy themselves 
the most unprejudiced and free. They are all fet- 
tered by the formalism of the letter,— and show that 
they do not yet understand what is meant by fol- 
lowing the steps of Christ. The unconstrained and 
simple-minded man, who, without suppressing his 
healthy interest in the world, or giving up one 
harmless custom or innocent recreation, goes forth 
with kind and sympathising heart among his fellow- 
creatures, to instruct their ignorance, to aid their 
strivings after a better condition, and to increase 
their means of rational enjoyment — is a true fol- 
lower of Christ, and has more of his spirit than the 



* The fact is mentioned by Mohler, in his Symbollk, o. v. § 44, 



122 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

straight est conform er to the mere letter of precept 
and example written clown in the New Testament. 

To give example a living influence, there must 
be sympathy ; and Christ's character is a fitting ob- 
ject for sympathy, because it is steeped in the affec- 
tions, and redolent of love. A cold form of unex- 
ceptionable excellence would be powerless for the 
excitation of a kindred life. The reflection that 
Christ suffered for us, beautifully prepares and 
deepens the feeling that he has left us an example 
and we should follow his steps. This is the side, 
too, of our own nature and our human experience, 
on which we most need the stimulus and encourage- 
ment of a great example. We have been cast into 
a world of abundant sin and woe ; and our highest 
duty is like Christ to suffer for it, that we may re- 
deem it. The spirit of Christian sacrifice belongs to 
all ages and animates all pure and noble minds. It 
inspires the martyr for truth's sake, and the self- 
devoting patriot or philanthropist, and gives him 
courage to do his work, and confidence to ask a 
blessing on it from heaven. Its agencies change ; 
its instruments vary ; its trials, difficulties, snares, 
and persecutions are diversified with the lapse of 
time and the progress of civilization : but its final 
object is ever one, and the same — to free man from 
bondage and oppression, to lift up his countenance 
in the light of freedom and truth, to reveal to him 
the worth of his own immortal mind, and to show 
him the living way that leads to heaven and God. 
Yaried may be the work which the Gospel -imposes 
on the faithful soul, but its impulse and aim are un- 



THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHRIST. 



123 



alterable. It is of one and the same quality— in the 
patient, earnest instructor of the children of the poor 
— in the fearless asserter of unpopular truth against 
calumny and misrepresentation — in the undaunted 
reformer of social evils and wrongs — in the patriot 
who lifts up an honest voice and a brave arm for 
right and freedom in his fatherland, and when far 
tune turns against him, prefers exile and poverty to 
the wages of shame. To all such, consoling is the 
remembrance and cheering the example of the pa- 
tient and self-sacrificing Son of God. His words 
are a divine support — ' Be of good cheer ; I have 
overcome the world.' His spirit enters their hearts ; 
and it makes them strong in weakness, and gives 
them peace in the depth of sorrow. They rejoice 
to suffer with the virtuous few who in every age 
have contended with ignorance and wickedness, and 
would fain have created around them a better and 
happier world. 

Where the influence of example is founded on 
the affections, and consists rather in a general im- 
pulse than a particular direction — it is even an ad- 
vantage which heightens its effect, that it should be 
displayed amidst circumstances that cannot be direct- 
ly paralleled with our own. The sympathy reaches 
us, but it is not vulgarised by too close a familiarity. 
It comes from a higher sphere, enriched with asso- 
ciations that bestow on it the character of a sacred 
poetry. We are rather attracted than repelled by 
the remoteness from our ordinary experience, of the 
wondrous scenes in which Christ is depicted to us. 
The greatness and singularity of his work — its serene 



124 CUKISTXAH ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

elevation above the low pursuits and exciting pas- 
sions of the world — its suffering and its martyrdom 
— while they show very clearly, that we cannot be 
exhorted to walk literally as Christ walked, give at 
the same time a peculiar grandeur to all the ex- 
pressions of his indwelling spirit, and cause them 
to make a deeper impression on the imagination — 
and, like certain great paintings seen from afar, 
bring out in bolder relief from a few broad masses 
of light and shade, the distinctive features of his 
mind and character. That power of love, and holy 
trust, and entire self-surrender to God, which is at 
once the preservation and the consecration of hu- 
manity — is here presented, as on some conspicuous 
theatre, with loftier stature and sublimer mien and 
more wonderful accompaniments — the living poetry 
of man's spiritual vocation — fitted to impress the 
heart with a profounder seriousness and to kindle the 
imagination with holier visions of excellence. Great 
emergencies, indeed, do not often occur, and heroic 
efforts are not perpetually wanted in the course of 
man's earthly life ; but the spirit that could meet the 
one, and sustain the other — the spirit that could fur- 
nish the hero, when he is demanded — should ever 
be in reserve, prompt and ready for action, in the 
depths of the human soul : and in the whole range 
of earth's traditions, no influence will be found so ef- 
fectual to preserve and cherish it, as that image of 
gentle bravery and patient endurance and earnest 
faithfulness, which is drawn in the rich and unfading 
colours of the Gospel. 

Men exact too much from Christianity, and make 



THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHRIST. 



125 



too little profit of what it actually offers. It is not 
the discipline of our reason. Reason can take care 
of itself. What Christianity yields, is nurture for 
the affections and stimulus to the will ; and this 
it gives through sympathy with the life of Christ — 
the only availing corrective of the selfishness which 
so deeply infects our world, and which reason too 
often does not cheek but rather justifies. The on- 
ward movement of the world is effected by a com- 
position of forces ; and Religion is one of them. A 
large spiritual impulse has been thrown into human 
affairs by Christianity ; too large and too strong, it 
might seem, if the letter of its precepts were brought 
to bear in unqualified vigor on each particular case 
of human conduct — but not more than sufficient, if 
the number and stubbornness of the obstacles be 
taken into view, which its spirit has every where to 
overcome. The same Being who gave the impulse 
its strength, foresaw and calculated on the limita- 
tions that would practically restrain its energy. If 
the humility, the self-denial, the forgiveness of 
wrongs, the contempt of riches, the abstinence from 
all physical force, the renunciation of the world, in- 
culcated by the Gospel — appear to some excessive 
and unreasonable, and opposed to the advance of 
civilisation— let it be recollected, that the inner prin- 
ciple out of which such tendencies emerge, exerts 
its force precisely in that direction, where in the ac- 
tual condition of society, a strong counteraction is 
most needed. Reason is ever sufficiently prepared 
with its abatements and its qualifications. Lovingly 
and thoughtfully meditate the life of Christ ; drink 



126 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

its spirit into your inmost soul ; and you will meet 
with no serious difficulty in its practical application. 
Paradoxical as it may seem to those who have not 
well considered the subject, it is the copious infusion 
of a rich poetic unction into the Gospel representa- 
tions of faith and duty, which makes them practical 
and intelligible above all that was ever taught in the 
books of the philosophers. For poetry is a voice 
that issues from and finds its echo in the deep popu- 
lar heart, where lies the source of all faith and of all 
enthusiasm for good. The speculation of the schools 
stands aloof from great popular sympathies, and 
plays off the dazzling coruscations of its cold and 
powerless light around the heads of the cultivated 
few; with how little direct effect on the popular 
morality and on popular progress, the history of phi- 
losophical opinion in all ages abundantly proves. 

A divine element clearly manifests itself in all 
the purest and highest minds. It is the witness of 
their parentage. It is the omen of their destiny. 
What a sorrow comes over us, when they pass away 
from earth ! "We feel as though an influence had 
gone, which made the world more beautiful and 
blessed while it remained. How sacred is the poet's 
grave, sleeping in the quiet bosom of the green vale, 
beneath the shadow of the mighty hills, to the 
solemn music of the everlasting brooks, amidst 
which his pure spirit had held daily communings 
with God ! — We feel holier as we bend over it and 
mourn. Of like nature, but deeper, holier still — is 
our emotion at the foot of the Cross of Christ. What 
a spirit, we reflect, was then eclipsed to this dark- 



THE FOOTSTEPS OF CHRIST. 



127 



ened world ! "What a wisdom and a love then 
ceased to give their strength to human weakness, 
and shed their healing on human woe ! His Gospel 
yet remains — embalming his words, and linking 
our hearts through ages in unbroken sympathy with 
his immortal spirit. When his life rises up before 
us from that beautiful record— so calm, so pure, so 
gentle, loving and holy — a spot of stainless light 
on the dark and turbid surface of the world's history 
— we feel what a divinity was in it ; what a fitting 
mediator he was between this life of sin and woe 
and the blessed peace of heaven ! We feel there is 
a consolation — an assurance — in Christ, which no- 
thing purely of earth can give. Through him we 
are spiritually united with God. His life is -the way 
by which we ascend to heaven. His spirit is the 
fount of living waters. He who drinks of them, 
shall never die. 



VIII. 



THE VEIL TAKEN FROM THE HEART. 

2 Corinthians, iii. 15, 16. 
" The veil is upon their heart." 

" Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be 
taken away." 

It was a doctrine of the celebrated Origen and 
some other fathers of the ancient Alexandrine 
Chnrch, that there are different senses in Scripture, 
one hidden beneath the other, which Christians suc- 
cessively penetrate into, as they advance in the spi- 
ritual life. In reference to Scripture, this doctrine 
is wholly untenable. Scripture in any one passage 
can have but a single sense — that which was present 
to the mind of its author when he wrote. In the 
several productions of which it consists, it is an ex- 
pression of the thought of one conscious and reflect- 
ing human being. It is otherwise, however, in that 
grander Word, where the Infinite Mind has imme- 
diately written down his thoughts — that ' elder 
Scripture,' of which our Bible is but a partial tran- 
script and conveys but a limited conception. Here 
we may proceed from height to height continually — • 
one truth more comprehensive and sublime rising 
up behind another in endless succession. The mind 



THE VEIL TAKEN FROM THE HEART. 



129 



of man, as it grows, opens more and more into 
the interior workings of the mind of God. As one 
integument after another of sensual blindness is 
taken away, and the inner life of his immortal spirit 
comes more freely into operation, he acquires deeper 
insight and discerns great and unsuspected realities 
hidden under the surface of things. Through the 
dim veil of the visible and perishing, he catches a 
glimpse of the vast significance of the unseen and 
the eternal. 

The natural man has a veil upon his heart. He 
sees what strikes the eye ; he hears what enters the 
ear ; and the impressions that act upon his senses, 
form as yet the only realities with which he is con- 
versant. Only by degrees he turns his thoughts 
inward on himself, and acquires the ideas of truth, 
duty, mental dignity, God and divine things. His 
earliest language to express these higher concep- 
tions, is borrowed from the world of sense. He can 
only speak intelligibly of them by figure and simili- 
tude. The wind, the stream, the tree, sunshine and 
darkness — help him to body forth and represent the 
invisible operations of the spirit. The seen becomes 
to him a dim mirror of the unseen. A secondary 
and far deeper sense slowly emerges to his view 
from beneath the grosser and more obvious meaning 
that lies on the broad face of the world. He learns 
at length, that man's whole wisdom is not exhausted 
in the doctrine — ' let us eat and drink, for to-mor- 
row we die'— and gains a faint though ever-strength- 
ening perception of the higher truth—' Man liveth 
not by bread alone, but by every word that proceed- 
7 



130 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



eth out of the mouth of God.' Moral and religions 
ideas are now interwoven with his whole conception 
of the life of man. A sublimer thonght enters into 
his interpretation of hnman action and suffering. 
As man walks the earth, a light is seen to pnrsne 
his footsteps and encompass his deeds, which discri- 
minates them, as read in the moral sense of the uni- 
verse, from the dark, ignominous destiny of the 
brute. Animal wants and impulses are still indeed 
in operation at the primitive groundwork of his be- 
ing — but capable of transformation into affection 
and moral sentiment, by the higher ends to which 
they may be subordinated. The demands of hunger 
and thirst, for example, and of shelter from nature's 
inclemency, call into existence innumerable branch- 
es of useful industry, stimulate contrivance and fore- 
thought, awaken the love of property, and weave 
out of it those earliest social relations which give 
occasion to the virtues of reciprocal faithfulness and 
honesty. Again, the union of the sexes among hu- 
man beings is something very different from the 
transient pairing of the feathered tribes. It is the 
symbol and outward expression of a holy, inward, 
and enduring love— the pledge of social order and 
harmony— consecrated by the highest sanctities, en- 
nobled by the spirit of self-denial and responsibility, 
and embalmed in the richest essence of a divine 
affection. Society, in its wildest range, national and 
international — involves far higher elements than the 
gregarious instinct of brutes. It is the embodiment 
of a great moral idea. The most refined conceptions 
of man's intellect— law, right, freedom, the common 



THE VEIL TAKEN FROM THE HEART. 131 

weal, human brotherhood — are its essential constit- 
uents, and stand forth with most distinct manifesta- 
tion to the mental eye from which the veil of sen- 
sual barbarism has been taken away. In this stage 
of human development, life presents itself under the 
solemn aspect of duty. The idea of what ought to be, 
rises up from the bosom of what is, and interprets its 
confusion, and elevates man's earthly existence into a 
grand moral effort, which must be bravely and con- 
sistently maintained, though wealth and honour and 
fame should not attend it, and his best hope should 
perish with the extinction of his mortal breath. This 
is the moral sense of the great book of Providence 
— a sense far more exalted and beautiful than the 
sensual and the selfish, though we could not go be- 
yond it — a sense in which many noble and earnest 
spirits have found contentment and inward dignity 
of soul, though they had no clear belief of an im- 
mortal inheritance. With simple and truthful hearts 
they turned to such light as was before them, and 
the carnal veil was removed. Amidst the tumult 
and disorder of human affairs, they traced the linea- 
ments of a deeper harmony and a grander truth. 
They saw and reverenced the great moral signi- 
ficance of the life that now is, though unable to 
penetrate the mysterious darkness of the eternity 
which surrounds it. 

But this is not the final rest of men's thoughts. 
From the moral, they pass on to the religious and 
spiritual meaning of life. Steady persistence in the 
path of duty, and habitual contemplation of the 
universe from the higher point of view which it 



132 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

affords — gradually open the mind to the perception 
of yet sublimer truths. There is one position in ex- 
istence, and perhaps only one — surveyed from which 
the widely-scattered and fragmentary indications of 
Divine purpose combine themselves into harmony, 
and disclose to us the commencement and rudi- 
mental tendencies of a grander order of things. It 
is the position in which we fix ourselves by resolute 
conformity to the dictates of conscience — when we 
look on life in the spirit of duty, and interpret its 
mysteries by the moral law within the breast. In 
this attitude, and with the spiritual eye sent out re- 
verentially in this direction — the mind is prepared 
to accept and appropriate such further discoveries of 
divine truth, as may dawn on it in the fervid action 
of its own powers from within, or may be brought 
to it by the revelations of some more gifted spirit 
from without. For contact with a prophetic spirit 
— above all, with its perfection in a Christ, where 
the deepest faith in things unseen is interfused in 
living union with more than human love and spot- 
less sanctity of life — excites and enkindles the latent 
elements of the immortal mind, and draws forth 
from the dim surmises and shadowy anticipations 
where but the germs of truth exist — the strengthen- 
ing outline and deepening features in which truth 
itself ever becomes more distinctly visible. With 
open face we behold as in a mirror, the glory of that 
prophetic soul, and are transformed into the same 
image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of 
the Lord. This gradual transition, in man's mental 
progress towards higher views of life, is in accord- 



THE VEIL TAKEN FROM THE HEART. 



133 



ance with that general law of development which 
pervades the universe, and yields a strong presump- 
tion, that the later views, when they grow out of the 
earlier and harmonise with them — are an approxi- 
mation to eternal truth. As the moral aspect of ex- 
istence took its images and its illustrations from the 
world of the senses, and was rudely mirrored on the 
coarse expanse of outward things — so the heavenly 
finds its types and its intimations in the moral world, 
and rises up through it with a softer and serener 
beauty into the spiritual ken. Another veil is re- 
moved, new light is admitted to the stronger organ. 
The Spirit of the Lord has quickened the percep- 
tions of the soul : and now — in duty, trial, sorrow 
and death — amid the questionings of reason, and 
the anguish of conscience, and the deep yearnings 
of affection — in that strange, mysterious play of light 
and shade which flits over the moral aspect of man's 
life — it reads a grander and more solemn purpose ; 
it discerns the indication of higher ends ; it traces 
the faint imagery of the calm, harmonious heaven, 
reflected from the dark and troubled waters of the 
world. 

Of things invisible the evidence can never be 
such, as those who rely on purely intellectual assur- 
ance, will demand. It is to be found very much in 
the state of the believing mind — in the particular 
aspect from which the subject is contemplated. It 
never can be presented in a completely demonstrative 
form. The materials for a conclusion lie scattered 
round us far and wide on every hand. The attrac- 
tion which gathers them into one view — the chain 



134: CHKISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

of thought which binds them together in a continu- 
ous argument, and renders them the expression of 
a comprehensive truth — must come from the reflect- 
ing mind and be a transference to them of a portion 
of its own moral vitality. So true it is, in the high- 
est of all senses, that the Kingdom of God must be 
found within us. It is the usual recompence of a 
calm, pure and devout soul, as it advances in years, 
to acquire clearer insight and deeper trust. It turns 
more and more to the great Lord of conscience and 
faith ; and in the mirrored image of his divine life, 
beholds a type of its own. By the light of his 
Spirit this earthly existence is transformed and beau- 
tified. It is taken out of its forlorn isolation. Its 
manifold relations with things eternal and unseen 
become perceptible. It is seen as but the commen- 
cing term of an infinite progression. The barriers 
vanish, which seemed to shut it in ; and infinity 
opens a sphere for its boundless course of future de- 
velopment. 

When this spiritual conception of existence has 
once got firm possession of the mind, the Future 
offers perpetual compensations for all that is relin- 
quished in the Past. As mortal life wears away, a 
deeper feeling grows up within us of the life that 
cannot perish. A veil is removed, and the spiritual 
vision discerns what was before invisible. To minds 
of a devout temper the eternal is mirrored in the 
temporal. It is in the celestial sense, that they read 
the varied page of life. The greatest and nearest 
of all realities is now placed, as it were, within their 
spiritual grasp. They rise no more darkly and 



THE VEIL TAKEN FROM THE HEART. 135 

doubtingly from the seen to the unseen ; but, re- 
versing the previous order of thought, they bring 
down the light of the unseen on the seen — to clear 
away the mystery and dissolve the shadows of earth : 
— and they find the true significance of all present 
appearances and events in their relation to the grand 
catastrophe of the human drama which is to come 
on the scene, when death's dark curtain is up- 
drawn. 

Encompassed by a fading and dissolving world, 
and musing on its evanescent scenes in that spirit of 
holy trust which infuses the serene blessedness of a 
Christian life — we are then most conscious of the 
eternal interest that we have in God — the veil which 
ordinarily rests on human hearts, is then most com- 
pletely removed, and a clear, unimpeded prospect 
lies before us into the spiritual world — when we 
turn our thoughts within, and compare those ele- 
ments of our being which bear on them the deepest 
impress of durability, with the external snows of 
things — fluctuating, perishable and transitory — 
amidst which our diviner functions find the stimulus 
and occasion of their present exercise and disci- 
pline. 

Our outward life flows on with ceaseless change 
in almost every element of which it is composed. 
Look back some twenty or five-and-twenty years — 
you that have already passed the meridian of your 
days. Contrast the circumstances which made your 
whole world of thought and action and endeavour 
then, with those in which you find yourselves now. 
You can hardly recognise the identity of your ex- 



136 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



istence. You seem to have dropped into another 
planet, and to belong to a different order of being. 
Yast events, in that interval, have swept over the 
busy and crowded stage of human affairs, and given 
a new colour to the aspects of the time. Great 
questions are in an altered position. Opinions in 
every direction have made rapid progress. On 
many points you are yourself conscious, that you 
think and feel differently from what you then did. 
Old friends, too, are gone. Associates in earlier 
labours and interests are no more. The fire of youth 
is sensibly quenched in yourself and others. The 
snows of time are falling fast on your head. Hand 
and voice are feebler than thev were. Younger and 
more energetic men are at your side, sharing with 
you more and more every day, the influence and ac- 
tivity with which once you filled almost alone the 
place assigned you by Providence. 

Yes, life flows on unceasingly. Yet on its de- 
scending stream there still survive — a few high 
trusts — a few great principles — a few glorious truths 
— a few blessed remembrances — which change, cala- 
mity, bereavement cannot touch — amid which the 
soul of the virtuous sits calmly enthroned — and 
which go with him — an enduring and unassailable 
possession, on which the last enemy cannot lay his 
hand— through the dark and lonely chasm where 
life's waters precipitate themselves into eternity. 
Yes, life flows on ; — and the bright banks and the 
sunny fields and the joyous woods of youth, it leaves 
far, far behind — never to be trodden again : but a 
grander scenery now shuts it in, rich with the reflec- 



THE VEIL TAKEN FROM THE HEART. 137 



tions of a manifold experience, and steeped in the 
softer and holier hues of a hope that beams more 
serenely beantiful with life's decline. 

Life flows on : — and the fragments of many a 
broken plan and shattered hope and mined ambition 
float beside us on its wave. Yet have we rescued 
some treasures from the wreck, and much abides 
with us that we can never lose. We have learned, 
that worldly success is not always the attendant of 
personal merit ; that riches do not always bring 
happiness ; nor elevated position, true dignity of 
soul : but that a peace, worth all the specious goods 
which this world has at its disposal, will ever be 
found in a simple and contented mind, in an affec- 
tionate heart, and in a pure and honourable life. — 
If this be all that we have learned, the world's great 
teachings will not have been wasted on us ; and we 
shall take with us into eternity, the seeds of a no- 
bler wisdom and the conditions of higher advance- 
ment. — Life flows on ; and a new generation, stran- 
gers to us and to the remembrances that are dearest 
to our hearts — are gay and active on its banks. 
Amongst them are our children, and our children's 
children ; and the sunshine of their bright and happy 
hours revives the memory of our own youth, and calls 
out again with its genial warmth, sympathies which 
had else lain cold and dead. Amidst them too, invisi- 
ble to them, but clearly discernible by our spiritual 
eyesight — are shadowy forms of those^long passed 
from earth, who once occupied the very ground where 
they are now revelling in the warm flush of joyous 
existence, and with us in by-gone days shared in the 
7* 



138 CHEISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

same eager and exciting interests which now engross 
their souls. 

There is something wonderful in this unchange- 
able stability and tenderness of human affection. 
Years have no power over it ; nay, cause it rather to 
strike a deeper root, and to put forth fresh blossoms 
on the bough that is grey with age. It is the expe- 
rience of most as they advance in life, that the 
scenes and companions of early years acquire new 
vividness in the memory, and a stronger hold on 
the heart. When we draw nigh to the dim thresh- 
old of the eternal scene, and a solemn shade over- 
casts all the nearer realities of earth — the images of 
life's morning come forth with renovated clearness 
from the faded past, and cluster round us again : 
as if to show, they had a lasting place in our souls, 
and were to usher us with their friendly companion- 
ship into that unknown world of which Death is 
the mysterious gate. A breath as from childhood 
passes over the spirit, and transports it once more 
into the scenery and influences of its first home. 
There is the dear, familiar abode, distinctly visible 
to memory's eye, where life's fresh joys and earliest 
sorrows were known — each nook and passage, the 
very pictures on the walls, and the old-fashioned 
furniture — all, tell-tales of a thousand little histories 
— just as they stood a generation ago, as though 
time had touched them not : — there is the garden, 
as it was when our childish hands cultivated the 
flower-pot, and plucked the fruit from the bush : — 
there are the fields and the woods, fresh and sweet 
as they were, when we rambled through them, re- 



THE VEIL TAKEN FROM THE HEART. 139 

sponsive in the careless gladness of our hearts to the 
voice of Spring : — and there — amongst them still — 
are the human forms which give them a deeper in- 
terest and a tenderer charm. Yea, the one dear 
and venerated friend, to whom life perhaps owes its 
happiest influence and most enduring impression of 
all that is good — whose death is separated from us 
by half a century — whose cherished words have 
slept within the soul, not forgotten, though unutter- 
ed to the world, amidst a crowd of later cares and 
and subsequent affections — comes back to us again 
with a new life from that distant day in the silent 
vigils of memory — as if to remind us, that he is now 
the sharer of a higher being — to claim from us on 
the verge of life, our whole debt of unextinguished 
affection — and to soften our departure from those we 
must shortly leave, by the welcome of one whom 
we long to behold again. 

To one who recognizes in the indestructible in- 
stincts of man's soul, the living root of religious 
truth, there is something of far weightier import 
than an amiable sentimentality, in this revival to- 
wards the close of life of its earliest recollections. 
For these are phenomena which constantly mark 
the last stages of the soul's earthly existence ; and 
whatever "attempts may be made to explain them 
from physical causes — if surveyed in the broad 
lights of a comprehensive religious philosophy, they 
seem replete with moral significance. That the 
best impressions of our human experience — the 
images of our happiest and most innocent hours, 
and the memories of those most justly venerable 



140 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

and dear — should throng around us with a new vi- 
tality as life's evening draws on, and cast their quiet 
and gentle light on the impending shade of death — 
is scarcely reconcilable with the supposition, that 
the spirit of which such remembrances are the most 
precious possession, is itself on the point of expir- 
ing forever. And O, my friends, if this sustaining 
faith, which we shall all need when a few more 
years have passed away — which even now we need 
continually, when an invisible hand plucks from the 
coronal of our domestic happiness, the choicest flow- 
ers of which it is woven — if this blessed and glo- 
rious faith is the fruit and recompense, not of meta- 
physical acuteness or dogmatic orthodoxy, but of a 
pure, humble, gentle and devout heart, filled with 
the spirit and aspiring after the life of Christ — let 
us cast out from our hearts and our homes, all that 
is sensual, selfish, unloving, worldly and base, and 
cherish one another, while we dwell together here, 
with holy affection, as members of the immortal 
family of God: — that, when Death steps into the 
midst of us, it may be, not to wrap our being in a 
deeper gloom, but to take the last veil from our 
hearts, and open our inward vision to the light of 
other worlds ; that in our closing hours, we may be- 
come more distinctly conscious of the invisible pre- 
sence that suiTOunds us, and behold the forms of the 
departed looking upon us as of yore with eyes of un- 
altered love, and hear the sweet tones of their well- 
known voice, as they bid us welcome to another 
home, and take us with them to the endless peace 
of our Father's house. 



IX. 



THE COINCIDENCE OF GENERAL AND SPECIAL 
PROVIDENCE. 

Romans, xi. 36. 

" Of Him, and through Him, and to Him, are all things: to Hini 
be glory for ever." 

The rapid intuitions of religions fervour some- 
times explore the depths of the spiritual world more 
searchingly than the keenest elaborations of logical 
subtlety. The soul's eye quickened by faith, pierces 
with a momentary glance through mysteries which 
repel the scrutiny of science. How exhaustive is 
this brief aphorism of the apostle, summing up in 
the sharply contrasted force of three prepositions, 
the whole doctrine of Providence ! 4 Of Him, 
through Him, to Him, are all things.' God is the 
primal source of being, its living agency, and its 
final issue. His incomprehensible essence enfolds 
the universe — originating, pervading and complet- 
ing all things. What can Philosophy add from all 
her treasures to this glorious utterance of the heart's 
wisdom ? Yet into what an abyss of thought does 
it plunge us ! We tremble with awe as we look 
down into it. We feel as if brought within the 
shadow of a truth, which has its roots in the impen- 
etrable secrets of inmost being, and shoots up into 



142 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

heights where man's intellect cannot follow it. To 
embrace that truth in all its amplitude, is possible 
only to the Infinite Mind. It is enough for us, if 
we can understand so much of it, as is practically 
applicable to ourselves ; — if, amidst the vast um- 
brageous wilderness which stretches round us into 
boundless depths on every side, we can discern the 
friendly bough which shelters our mortal lot, laden 
with fruits of richest solace and heavenly strength 
for the sustenance of our immortal souls. 

It is singular, that the earliest speculations of 
mankind should often have anticipated the pro- 
foundest questions of a later philosophy. There 
seems wrapped up in the human soul a latent di- 
vination of the highest truths. "When it first awa- 
kens from the trance of barbarism, it sketches a 
loose, irregular outline of them on the dim blank 
of the Infinite, which the repeated essays of subse- 
quent generations have done little more than attempt 
to correct and define and fill up. It is humbling to 
reflect, on how few topics in speculative philosophy, 
we have made any considerable advance beyond 
the mere surmises of our forefathers. On the other 
hand, in the vague prescience which enlightened 
the intellectual infancy of our race, we have a con- 
solatory indication of the soul's affinity with the 
Spirit which governs all things, and of the change- 
less unity of aim which pervades its aspirations and 
rules its destiny. The very perturbations of its 
course, watched and computed from age to age, 
compensate each other, and yield the pure curve of 



GENERAL AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 143 



unerring direction, in which the Creator projected 
it, to move for ever. 

The doctrine of Providence is one of the darkest 
and most difficult problems on which the human in- 
tellect has been exercised ; yet it is one which men 
have loved to discuss from the remotest times. On 
few subjects has speculation been wilder or more 
conflicting. The superior wisdom of the present 
day consists in the better knowledge derived from 
experience, of the limits of our faculties : and the 
GosjDel which puts the grounds of faith within our- 
selves, has disclosed in the reflected light of Christ's 
own life, the few unquestionable facts of our inner 
consciousness which are the basis of all Religion. 
Of such facts we must ever keep firm hold, in ven- 
turing forth to any distance from the shore, on that 
outlying, boundless sea of speculation where thou- 
sands of rash, presumptuous spirits have foundered 
and been lost. There was a deep wisdom in the 
governing maxim of the old Catholic Church — though 
often, it must be confessed, meagerly understood and 
falsely applied— that truth is to be found in a cen- 
tral point equally remote from divergent errors. 
The conditions of health are then most clearly per- 
ceived, when they have been compared with the ir- 
regular workings of disease. Let us apply this prin- 
ciple to the question before us. 

"We must look for the true doctrine of Providence, 
in the mean between fatalism which annihilates hu- 
man free-agency in the overwhelming sovereignty 
of God — and that opposite theory of the universe, 
which leaves man to pick his way and secure his 



144 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

well-being, by a light within himself for which he 
cannot account, amidst agencies originating he knows 
not how, and working with tendencies whose final 
issue he cannot divine. The fanatical Theist loses 
all sense of law and of rational self-subjection to its 
requirements, in helpless prostration before the irre- 
sistible omnipotence of arbitrary "Will. The cold- 
blooded Atheist discerns law, and sees how he must 
act in relation to it : but he does not feel what law 
implies, and conceives no trust and experiences no 
joy from relying on it and co-operating with it. In 
both forms of error we recognise the uncontrolled 
and exaggerated operation of tendencies which are 
alike rooted in the necessary constituents of man's 
nature — which are needed to check and balance each 
other — and which harmoniously combined would 
issue in the proper belief of a Providence. 

Divines make a distinction between the doctrines 
of a general and a special Providence. The former 
recognises an intelligent Author and Governor of the 
universe, and supposes Him to have constructed it 
at first on principles so perfectly wise and good, that 
they suffice of themselves to its orderly maintenance 
and development, without any occasion for special 
interpositions. The very admission indeed of such 
a necessity would imply a want of completeness in 
the original construction. But this view apparently 
so honourable to the Deity, excludes Him from all 
direct and constant intercourse with his creatures, 
and renders Him of little present interest to them.. 
The laws and tendencies which He is supposed to 
have impressed on matter at the beginning of all 



GENERAL AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 145 

things, intervene rather as a barrier than a commu- 
nication between Him and them ; for having once 
set them in action, it is thought more consistent with 
his majesty, that He should henceforth cease from 
having any immediate share in the conduct of the 
universe. Man is placed in the midst of the divine 
works, to study and learn to execute the purpose in- 
dicated by them, — and to penetrate by reason through 
the interposed medium of second causes to the great 
remote First Cause, who dwells outside of creation, 
surveying it with a benevolent self-complacency, but 
admitting no human soul into his living presence. 
This may be described as the mechanical theory of 
Providence — the last and most refined expression of 
that anthropomorphic feeling — that interpretation 
of the ways of God from the works of man — which 
has so deeply imprinted itself on the successive 
phases of theological opinion. It has been a favour- 
ite theory with many philosophical Theists. We 
discern traces of its influence in Pope's Universal 
Prayer and Essay on Man. It was widely current, 
with divers modifications, among the Deists and 
Free-thinkers of the last century — that numerous 
class, who renouncing all belief in positive revela- 
tion, still retained their faith in a Supreme Mind and 
a moral government. It was a view well suited to 
men, in whom intellect was more strongly developed 
than feeling — whose studies had made them familiar 
with the uniform and unfailing operation of law in 
the divine economy of the world, but who could ill 
appreciate those fervent demands for a more inti- 
mate communion with God, which spring up irre- 



146 CHKISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

pressibly in all devotional temperaments. It is not 
an atheistical view, but it involves an atheistical ten- 
dency ; because it renders the belief in a God, sim- 
ply an intellectual, not a moral, necessity to the 
human soul. When God ceases to be a daily need 
for our spiritual strength and refreshment, there is a 
disposition to dispense with Him as a superfluous 
hypothesis, and to acquiesce in the ultimate suffi- 
ciency of law considered in itself. 

Such a view could not suffice for men of a diffe- 
rent cast of mind — in fact, never has sufficed for the 
majority of religious persons in any age. Unac- 
quainted with philosophical theories of the universe, 
and having little or no knowledge of any but the 
simplest and most obvious laws of nature — such 
persons admit unquestioned the traditional belief of 
their forefathers into warm and susceptible souls — 
and find in their reliance. on the omnipresent agency 
of God, as the power which directs all their steps, 
and orders every event with a view to their spiritual 
discipline — the one great idea ever at hand, to solve 
life's mysteries and yield them patience and trust 
under its trials. These are the believers in a special 
Providence : and the followers of all the great popu- 
lar monotheisms — Jews, Mohammedans and Chris- 
tians — so long as they have been satisfied with the 
simple doctrines of their primitive belief, and have 
not ventured on philosophical refinements, have ever 
clung with remarkable tenacity to such views and 
almost looked on the retention of them as the test of 
a genuine faith. 

The former class apprehend God by their under- 



GENERAL AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCE . 147 



standings, searching Him through the depths and 
intricacies of his visible works. Law conceived in 
its abstractest form, is the grand intellectual scale 
by which they ascend to the heights of Deity, where 
the object of their worship sits distant and awful on 
the silent throne of the universe, and casts from afar 
the shadow of a cold reverence on their hearts. The 
latter are persons of lively faith and quick sensibili- 
ties, who feel God as a living presence in their in- 
most hearts, to comfort and counsel them amidst the 
world's daily toils and temptations. Their ardent 
devotion springs over the intervening agency of law, 
and mounts at once to God as the one great reality 
of existence — the immediate Dispenser and uner- 
ring Conductor of every influence which mingles in 
their varied flow of being. Life wears to them the 
one plain and simple aspect of a preparation for the 
judgment-seat of God. Ignorant of the grander and 
more general laws which embrace their humble lot, 
and send into it the impulses that shape its course, 
they only see in its changes direct workings of the 
hand of God. Every blessing that crowns their 
faithful labours, they accept as God's immediate an- 
swer to their pra} T ers. Every trial which they have 
been spared, and every snare out of which they have 
been delivered, reveals to them a clear case of Di- 
vine interposition in their favour. In the sorrows 
which have humbled and sobered their hearts, when 
pride and exultation were becoming too strong — 
they recognise the chastisements which the vigilance 
of a Father's love saw they needed, and which He 
specially appointed for their correction. With the 



148 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

one class, every thing is law, operating uniformly 
and necessarily. With the other, every thing de- 
pends on the immediate determinations of the Divine 
Mind, influenced by the moral deserts of his crea- 
tures. Such is the broad distinction between the 
doctrines of a general and a special providence. It 
indicates tendencies which have each their fitting 
place in the human mind, but yielded to implicitly 
and followed into their logical results independently 
of one another, terminate in the extreme conclusions 
already noticed of fatalism and atheism — in the 
former case, will annihilating law, in the latter, law 
annihilating will. 

It remains to be shown, what is the element of 
truth involved in each of these theories. For in 
every form of opinion that has exercised an exten- 
sive sway amongst mankind, there is always some 
truth ; not indeed the whole truth, but at least a side 
of it perceptible to those who put themselves in the 
right point of view for apprehending it, and which 
only becomes error by isolation from other truths 
that should furnish the needful qualification. There 
is a sense in which the philosophical doctrine of 
Providence is true. All outward events and phe- 
nomena are embraced under the stern and irreversi- 
ble dominion of law. Apparent exceptions disap- 
pear when more thoroughly examined. Science is 
a perpetual revelation of law. The universe is a 
compound of laws, one working under and within 
another — the most minute and special embraced in 
the more general, and issuing from their combina- 
tion. Even effects that depend on human volition— 



GENERAL AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 149 

such as particular acts, dispositions and occupations — 
are shown by the results of statistical inquiry, to 
stand in a certain uniform relation to external cir- 
cumstances, and to come so nearly within the limits 
of law as to be almost susceptible in general terms 
of prediction. We may affirm, then, with the phi- 
losophic theist, that God manifests Himself only 
through law ; that law is his uniform mode of agen- 
cy ; that we can know Him through nature in no 
other way ; and that consequently, the more we know 
of the laws of nature, the more we know, in this out- 
ward sense, of God. 

But there is another way of becoming acquainted 
with God — tbe way of spiritual experience, opened 
to us in our souls. Through this medium God 
exercises his Providence in a different manner from 
his government of the material world. Here also 
it is true, that analogy and a perception of conse- 
quences forbid us to assume, that God acts without 
law, and that his intercourse with intelligent and 
sympathising natures, is in any degree subject to 
caprice or arbitrary determination. But the laws 
which govern the spiritual world, lie deeper and are 
less apprehensible by us ; they have a wider and 
subtler ramification of influence ; they depend on 
conditions peculiar to the region of mind. We 
here approach those c dim-discovered tracts' of be- 
ing — the border-land, as it were, of the finite and 
the Infinite — where our instruments of observation 
fail us, and our mental vision is lost and confounded 
in depths and altitudes of thought for which we can 
find no measures of comparison. A few points 



150 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

alone are definitely fixed, to guide us as far as we 
can go. "We must not violate the first principles of 
eternal reason : we must not disregard those instinc- 
tive promptings of our spiritual nature, which are 
as much fundamental realities of our being, and as 
essential conditions of all truth, as the principles of 
reason itself : and in our earnest efforts to find out 
God and understand his ways, we must admit no 
view inconsistent with the highest notion that we 
can form of a perfect Spirit. Within such limits 
we are to seek the great truth of a Divine Pro- 
vidence. 

It is the first intuition of Religion — confirmed 
by Christianity, whose vital dogmas breathe its con- 
centrated essence — that through the soul we have 
direct access to God, and by a trustful heart and a 
submitted will and a devoted service, may spiritu- 
ally unite ourselves with Him. The precise relation 
indeed of man's will and agency to the Divine, is 
one of those mysteries which God has reserved to 
Himself. "We gaze upon it with solemn awe, and 
pass on ; for it is inexplicable. All attempts to 
fathom it, involve the contradictions which rush in 
on the bewildered understanding, as soon as the 
finite seeks to grasp the Infinite. Let us be content 
to recognise — as landmarks in the illimitable field 
that spreads before us — one or two unquestionable 
facts that are clearly attested by the inner consci- 
ousness and verified by reflection, without presum- 
ing to determine the logical connexion between 
them, or lapsing into sceptical despair because we 
cannot trace it. — We know from the sure witness 



GENERAL AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 151 

within, that we have a power of voluntarily doing, 
or forbearing to do, that which presents itself to us 
under the circumstances in which we are placed, as 
morally right or morally wrong — in a religious sense, 
of allying ourselves with, or opposing ourselves to, 
the spiritual agency in which we revere the sove- 
reign legislation of the Universe. That such acts 
are properly our own — that in performing them, we 
are something more than passive instruments me- 
chanically set in action by a higher power — is 
proved to all men practically, beyond the possibility 
of dispute, by the effects of that inward reaction 
which produces self-approval in the one case, and 
self-condemnation or remorse in the other. Here, 
then, we have one great spiritual fact established — 
that of individual responsibility. Again, from rea- 
son we are equally sure, that the results of our choice, 
whether it has been for or against the moral law — 
when they fall out of our minds into the vast tide 
of events which is rolling round us and sweeping 
past us in the external world, will be taken up by 
the great restorative processes of universal law, and 
wrought out by the Supreme "Wisdom, from what- 
ever moral influence they originally proceeded, into 
the unfailing issues of ultimate justice and mercy. 
Here we recognise another fact, which reason equally 
forbids us to question — the absolute sovereignty of 
God. On these two facts— incapable of perfect re- 
concilement in our limited view, yet each resting on 
unanswerable evidence of its own — is suspended the 
great problem of Divine Providence. 

The vital point in the question immediately in- 



152 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

teresting us now — is this : — the power of voluntary 
approximation to God or voluntary recession from 
Him, which consciousness testifies we all possess — 
introduces a new element into the conception of 
Divine law, which meets the demands of many a 
devout soul for the consolations of a special Provi- 
dence. The precise distinction between matter and 
mind, it may not be possible for us to explain ; but 
this we can see — that they present a different sub- 
ject to the action of God's Spirit ; and that the 
Divine agency, though pervading the external as 
well as the mental world, and operating in both un- 
der the guidance of wise and benignant law, sustains 
from the very nature of spirit, a more intimate rela- 
tion to the latter than to the former, and in its effects 
upon it, must be modified by the moral condition of 
the recipient mind. There may be, therefore, from 
the mysterious correlation between the Divine and 
the human spirit involved in the fact of man's free 
agency — a special adaptation of Divine influences 
to the moral requirements of each individual case, 
without its being necessary to suppose, that God 
ever acts arbitrarily, or otherwise than in strict ac- 
cordance with uniform law. He may treat man in 
every instance, as man by his own deliberate effort 
or culpable negligence, has put himself in a condi- 
tion to be treated : and thus there is a sense in which 
it may be philosophically true, that God exercises a 
special providence, every moment that we breathe, 
over the lives of all of us. 

A few obvious illustrations will render this state- 
ment more clear. The cases in which the doctrines 



GENERAL AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 153 

of a general and a special Providence are usually 
deemed most at variance, and the latter is charged 
by the former with presumption and inconsistency 
— are the following : (1.) prayers for help and de- 
liverance ; (2.) intercession for others ; (3.) expec- 
tation of immediate peace and joy from repentance 
and conversion. On all these cases I may remark 
generally at the outset — that the sure effect of an 
earnest self-surrender to God, is an accession of 
strength and insight to all the moral and spiritual 
faculties. New life flows down from the Parent 
Mind into the soul that seeks communion with Him 
in filial trust and devotedness — and gives it light to 
see its way through the darkest scenes, and a strength 
not of this world for the performance of the hardest 
service. Our moral relations to the universe are re- 
vealed to us in the light of God's Spirit. We com- 
prehend the requirements of duty by the simple 
wisdom of the heart. It is the right appreciation of 
these moral relations, and the faithful performance 
of duties growing out of them, that constitute the 
worth and dignity of man as man. "We may want 
a scientific view of the world ; we may even be ig- 
norant of some of the most important physical laws : 
and yet with a simple, earnest, pious heart, singly 
intent on good, we shall see what we ought to do in 
the narrow sphere of responsibility assigned us, and 
do it well. For light is ever proportionate to re- 
sponsibility. Scientific mistakes, if such we incur, 
will be overruled by moral earnestness, to far higher 
good in the final result, than if with more scientific 
illumination, we had possessed less spirituality of 
8 



154 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

mind and integrity of heart. Such conclusions, 
which find a verification in our daily experience, 
will suggest the means of reconciling a special with 
a general Providence. 

A good and pious man, in the fulness of his un- 
doubting faith, prays to God for deliverence from 
the straits of adversity, and implores a blessing on 
the fruits of his labours. ' Help yourself,' says the 
scornful philosopher — ' and do not weary Heaven 
with your unavailing prayers. The means are in 
your own hand. Use them ; and the effect will fol- 
low.' True it will follow ; but its productiveness 
must be in proportion to the energy of the will which 
prompts it, and the clear foresight which guides it 
to its destined end. Such is the union and sympa- 
thy of the mental with the material world, that a 
divine influence streams out from one upon the 
other, and floods it with a superhuman energy. 
Men become new creatures, when they work in con- 
scious harmony with God. They detect the secrets 
of the omnipresent Spirit, and lay hold of its hidden 
springs. An inspiration comes over them, whose 
marvellous effects transcend the dull mechanism of 
worldly routine and frustrate the selfish calculations 
of worldly prudence. History abounds with records 
of the calm success of men who have lived in the 
spirit of prayer and the power of faith, and sought 
no other wisdom than what they found in the prompt- 
ings of an honest and religious heart. 

The case of intercession is attended with more 
difficulty. Logic forsakes us here. We must look 
for a reason in the religious impulses of our na- 



GENEEAL AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 155 

ture. We are urged to intercession by feelings 
which we cannot resist. When you part with a 
daughter to find her future home among strangers 
in a distant land, or commit a son for the first time, 
young and inexperienced, to the snares and seduc- 
tions of the great world — can you repress a prayer 
to Heaven for their preservation from the sorrows 
and perils with which life abounds ? No, it goes up 
to God involuntarily. It escapes from your lips be- 
fore you are aware. You could not check it, even 
if you knew it was sinful. Nature here is mightier 
than reason, and will have her way. And shall we 
charge the God who made the heart, with subject- 
ing it to baseless illusions, because we cannot un- 
derstand the mode in which its holiest petitions will 
be answered ? We know not the endless connex- 
ions and hidden sympathies that pervade the spirit- 
ual world, and influence its course. When Nature's 
pleading is so universal and so strong, it is sufficient 
to see, that it involves nothing impossible or absurd. 
There is oftentimes a faith higher than reason, on 
which the devout heart may well repose. A pure, 
unselfish, affectionate and trustful soul, responsive to 
the Spirit that watches over all things, and shedding 
the fulness of its tenderest solicitudes on the sym- 
pathy of the Infinite Heart — may be prolific of good 
to an extent that we cannot measure, and the condi- 
tion of effects throughout the system of Providence, 
which it is not for us to attempt to trace. Influences 
too, within our comprehension, may obviously con- 
fer a preservative force on intercessory prayer. How 
often may vigilance quickened by devotion, and 



156 CHRISTIAN" ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



thoughtfulness that has gained deeper insight by 
communion with God, anticipate evils and avert 
dangers which an irreligious spirit in its blind apa- 
thy would have overlooked, or allowed to pass un- 
corrected ! How touching and solemn is the reflec- 
tion, that those whom we love best on earth, and by 
whom we are most purely and tenderly beloved — a 
sister's gentle spirit or a mother's full heart — never 
address themselves to God without a word of holy 
supplication on our behalf! The hour of prayer, 
when the mind gathers up its thoughts from the dis- 
tractions of the day, and weary with the toils of life, 
craves an interval of rest — is a hallowed and blessed 
time. Distant souls meet then in the presence of 
God, and exchange a silent sympathy which strength- 
ens their mutual affection, and makes them unseen 
a check on each other's faithfulness and purity.* 

The promise of immediate blessing to the con- 
verted sinner, is alleged by the philosopher as an- 
other instance of contrariety between the doctrines 
of a special and a general Providence : and the very 
possibility of such a sudden change of condition is 
denied, as inconsistent with the fixed and uniform 
laws by which God administers his moral govern- 

* ' — The course of prayer who knows? 
It springs in silence where it will, 
Springs out of sight, and flows 
At first a lonely rill : 

But streams shall meet it by and by, 
From thousand sympathetic hearts, 
Together swelling high. 

Their chant of many parts.' 
Christian Year. Monday in Easter Week. 



GENERAL AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 157 

ment. Scripture is quoted as at variance with itself 
on this subject. ' God,' says Moses, 1 will visit the 
sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third 
and fourth generation of them that hate Him.' ' Go 
in peace,' says Christ to the sinner, ' thy faith hath 
saved thee.' The Law prolongs the penalty to 
children's children : the Gospel, on repentance, cuts 
it off in the life of the offender himself. How can 
both these statements represent a truth, and be re- 
ceived as the word of God? Both are, however, 
true from their own point of view. The difference 
is that of the dispensations to which they respec- 
tively belong — one affecting the outward life — the 
other, the interior condition of the soul. The laws 
of health and social relation, which sin has violated, 
will hold on their course and bear their penal fruits, 
often through more than one generation ; and the 
inevitable working of these laws should be deeply 
impressed on all men's minds, and set forth with 
distinct and emphatic warning in every system of 
education. For it is a terrible truth, that repent- 
ance, however profound and durable, is many times 
without avail to restore vigour to a debilitated con- 
stitution, to recruit the fortunes that have been pro- 
digally wasted, or to avert from guiltless children, 
the consequences of parental folly and crime. Yet 
it is also true, that the law of mind is mightier than 
all outward laws ; and the Gospel justifies its pro- 
mise by calling that law of mind into the fullest 
operation. Repentance, indeed, cannot at once re- 
establish health, or bring back an estate, or put a 
family in the same advantageous circumstances in 



158 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

regard to tliis world, as they might else have en- 
joyed; and to those who see all things in the light 
of this world, so remediless an alternative may ap- 
pear pure and unmixed evil. But when the heavenly 
call has been heard and obeyed, and faith has purged 
the inner vision of the soul, and will, quickened by 
a spirit from above, has resolutely subjected itself to 
God's law, and duty and the eternal life have be- 
come the great realities of existence — then the heri- 
tage of penal suffering, without ceasing outwardly 
to be such, is transformed by an energy which goes 
forth from the mind itself, into a source of spiritual 
blessing. To the converted sinner, and to all who 
are connected with him, it is made a holy and puri- 
fying discipline — a stimulus to moral progress and 
an instrument of moral power — fraught with trials 
and difficulties which, under the corrective influence 
of a religious spirit, form the soul to a true virtue, 
and teach it meekness and patience and self-denial 
and devout trust, and breathe into it the tender and 
sympathising humanity which thousands in the ful- 
ness of an outward prosperity are not aware that 
they want. Evil in its external aspects is unchanged ; 
but to the soul its spiritual relation is reversed. Thus 
God keeps his word under both his covenants. In 
the life of a true penitent, the fruits of past wicked- 
ness, severed from the stock which nourished them, 
lose their noxious quality, and even fatten the soil 
for the future harvests of good. 

The special Providence of God operates on the 
will, conscience, and affection of individual man. 
These will be refractory, dull and cold, or prompt, 



GENERAL AND SPECIAL PROVIDENCE. 159 

vigilant and full of fervour — converting God's out- 
ward visitations into curses or blessings, as the soul 
turns itself away from God and repels the infusions 
of his Spirit, or as it seeks Him in the holy earnest- 
ness of prayer and cherishes its inner life in the 
bosom of his love. The might of a religious spirit 
over the things of this world, is wonderful. There 
are seasons when its influence atones for the natural 
weakness of reason, and replaces all the deficiencies 
of knowledge. ISTor must this view be considered 
as any argument against the importance of an in- 
creased acquaintance with science. It simply af- 
firms, that in the unavoidable absence of scienc e, 
the moral purposes of life may be fully accomplish- 
ed ; inasmuch as there is a substitute for it in the 
religious nature of man, which abundantly suffices, 
under every degree of intellectual light, for his safe 
and happy guidance. A mind truly devout, as soon 
as it is conscious of ignorance, will seek to dispel it. 
To do right according to present knowledge, is man's 
first duty ; to extend his means of doing it, by more 
knowledge and wider views of truth, is his second. 
Whatever a conscientious man perceives to be a law 
in the government of God's world, he will hold 
himself bound to obey : and if his piety keep pace 
with his science — if his affections are not chilled by 
doubt, but interpose their warm and genial hues as 
a tempering medium to the clear, cold light that 
streams in upon his intellect — he will grow day by 
day into the conviction, that every act he performs, 
every truth he gains, every sentiment he cultivates, 
every aspiration he indulges, in conscious harmony 



160 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

with the eternal laws of the universe — is but an- 
other link to bind his nature in a living bond with 
God. Step by step he will more fully reconcile the 
demands of faith and reason; and in his ever- 
widening view the doctrines of a general and a 
special Providence will be seen finally to coalesce in 
one. 



X. 



THE TRUE EXPRESSION OF HUMAN BROTHERHOOD. 

Matthew, xxiii. 8. 
" All ye are brethren." 

There are some emotions which thrill to the very 
depths of the soul. Of such is the consciousness of 
human brotherhood. For power over all the springs 
of holy tenderness, it comes next to the conscious- 
ness of God. Moments occur in the lives of all of 
us, when we feel, that there is a closer and more 
enduring tie between men, than is indicated by the 
outward relationship of birth and social position — a 
spiritual bond that grows out of the sympathies of 
the immortal mind, and cannot be touched by the 
casualties of outward things. The greatest minds 
are most alive to this solemn consciousness. The 
passages in the poets which we remember to have 
most deeply moved us, are such as called it forth in 
its utmost strength. There is a common heart in 
humanity, and the tears start unbidden to our eyes, 
when the sad or joyous realities are vividly pre- 
sented to us, which are the common inheritance of 
our race. When great principles have made their 
way in the world, and are advancing towards uni- 
versal acknowledgment, they are caught up by the 
8* 



162 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

popular sentiment, and not rarely disfigured and 
exaggerated by undiscriminating fanaticism. There 
may be, and there actually is, such a thing as the 
cant of human brotherhood. To understand its 
claims and feel its blessing, it is important to show, 
what it is not, and what is sometimes put forth in 
place of it. 

The spirit of human brotherhood is not, then, the 
same thing as the spirit of mere democracy. Doubt- 
less there often has been a true heart of humanity 
in strong democratic movements ; but sometimes 
also they have only disguised the efforts of selfish- 
ness and a vulgar ambition. Human brotherhood 
not only does not demand an equalization of the 
external condition of mankind, but is even incom- 
patible with it. Dependence and authority are a 
consequence of the different relations which the 
course of events or original diversities of power and 
intelligence inevitably establish among men. So- 
ciety is the sum total of these relations : and in the 
due adjustment of them, the realization of human 
brotherhood consists. It may be remarked of all 
attempts to efface these inequalities of condition, 
that they can never succeed, inasmuch as they 
thwart the great law of the Divine government, 
which is unity in the midst of diversity ; — and fur- 
ther, that they lay the stress of philanthropy in the 
wrong place — on the merely outward in the human 
lot, which it is impossible for laws to fix in a par- 
ticular type — to the neglect of the inward life, where 
a true equality — an equality of worth and happi- 
ness — can alone be found. This observation does 



EXPRESSION OF HUMAN BROTHERHOOD. 163 

not, of course, extend to the maintenance of any 
distinctions among men that are exclusive and un- 
just, — or of unequal and oppressive government of 
any kind. All such evils demand and justify resist- 
ance, till they are removed. Often it is the natural 
re-action against their long endurance, which impels 
men in the first frenzy of a new liberty, to aim at 
forcibly introducing a superficial and external equa- 
lity, destructive of that deeper equality felt in the 
heart, through which alone they become truly con- 
scious of a common brotherhood. 

The spirit of human brotherhood is not promoted 
by artificially breaking down those lines of natural 
separation in the intercourse of different classes, 
which result inevitably from congeniality of pur- 
suits and interests, from correspondence in social 
position, and from harmony in manners, tastes and 
sentiments. The folly here is in meddling with the 
spontaneous operations of nature. Left to them- 
selves, the different elements of society fall easily 
into their proper places, and assume their natural 
functions, and work peacefully together without any 
collision — each man happy in habitual association 
with those, whom education and circumstances have 
fitted him most* readily to sympathise with, and ena- 
ble him best to understand. Nor does this view of 
society justify a spirit of pride and exclusiveness. 
On the contrary, it is the vicious predominance of 
such qualities which produces an inordinate tend- 
ency in the opposite direction. It is the presump- 
tuous attempt of cold and haughty natures to throw 
up an artificial barrier between the social grades, 



164 CHRISTIANS' ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

■which disinclines men to recognise the natural one. 
Nothing forced and artificial ever succeeds. There 
is an obvious feeling of propriety in these matters, 
which a genuine humanity will be content to follow. 
And indeed the truly sympathetic and actively 
benevolent rarely overlook it or protest against it. 
Complaint usually comes from the restless and the 
vain — impatient of the barriers which confine their 
ambition, and hankering for sudden distinction. Is 
there a more valuable class in society than our do- 
mestic servants ? Who have such an influence on 
our daily comfort and happiness ? Who have so 
strong claim on our sympathy? Whom are we 
more bound to treat with habitual consideration 
and courtesy? Yet it is quite clear, that we should 
in nowise increase their happiness or our own, if 
we were to break through the conventional rules of 
decorum, which long experience has ratified, and 
familiarly were to replace the old usage of respect- 
ful reserve and friendly regard — if they, for instance, 
were to sit down at table with us, and take a part 
in the conversation of our friends, or we as unrea- 
sonably and improperly were to obtrude ourselves 
on their intervals of leisure, and join the circle of 
their personal acquaintance. This is an extreme 
case, but it tests the principle. Try it in another 
way. Consider the relations of the middle class to 
the aristocracy. We should feel it very unbecom- 
ing and very foolish, to claim admission on terms of 
perfect freedom and familiarity into the society of 
those, whose station and mode of life, whose habits 
and ideas, are so widely different from our own : 



EXPRESSION OF HUMAN BROTHERHOOD. 165 

and we should certainly resist, as an intolerable im- 
pertinence, any attempt on their part to intrude on 
our privacy, to disturb our natural affinities, and 
interrupt our chosen intercourse. Each class best 
works out its own objects independently, within the 
limits which the constructive organism of Society 
has thrown around it, for the protection of its speci- 
fic agency. 

These remarks apply to constant familiar inter- 
course. There are occasions of a more public na- 
ture, religious and philanthropic — seasons of na- 
tional rejoicing or periodical festivity — when it is 
much to be wished, that all classes would lay aside 
their habitual reserve, and mingle kindly and cor- 
dially with each other. But there are manifesta- 
tions among us, of a tendency to go far beyond this 
point, and to level every where all social distinctions, 
as an infringement on the natural rights of man. 
Whether the prevalence of such a spirit be really 
conducive to feelings of mutual respect and brotherly 
love between different classes, is more than doubt- 
ful. Its action wants calmness. Its obvious sources 
infuse into it elements of unhealthy excitability. It 
is produced partly by intense disgust at the cold 
and haughty reserve which still too strongly marks 
the demeanour of the upper ranks — partly by the 
hasty generalisations to which first impressions 
of truth naturally lead among the imperfectly ed- 
ucated — and partly by that mixed feeling of philan- 
thropy and piety which adopts the doctrines and 
usages of the first Christians, as they are literally set 
forth in the New Testament, without due considera- 



166 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

tion of the conditions under which Providence has 
taught us, they are to be applied to the present 
circumstances of mankind. 

The spirit of human brotherhood does not show 
itself in claiming absolutely for every individual of 
every class, a direct share in the political affairs of 
his country. This may or may not, according to 
circumstances, become a condition of the general 
welfare. But much declamation wholly beside the 
purpose, is sometimes vented on this subject by per- 
sons who would fain have themselves considered as 
the exclusive friends of the people. No rule of uni- 
versal application can be laid down. No abstract 
right can be affirmed. No man can claim that as a 
right, which it might be shown would tend, if put 
indiscriminately into practice, to endanger or impede 
the steady progress of society, and consequently to 
defeat the ultimate interest of every class in the 
state. Rights are not a constant quantity in the 
vast computation of human interests, but grow with 
an uniform increment in proportion to man's capa- 
city of comprehending and fulfilling the duties that 
are co-ordinate with them. The sole object of im- 
portance is, the moral development of society ; — 
that each class and interest composing it, should be 
so effectually protected and represented, as to secure 
just and impartial government for all — no burden 
unfairly laid — no privileges exclusively conferred — 
no monopolies of social advantage and distinction 
permitted to subsist, which keep down any class, 
and prevent its members from attaining the consid- 
eration and influence to which virtue and talent 



EXPRESSION OF HUMAN BROTHERHOOD. 167 

would else entitle them. The present is not a fit- 
ting occasion to inquire, what may be the best 
means, under the actual circumstances of society, 
for accomplishing this object. Our business here is 
with humanity and religion, not with politics. But 
it should never be forgotten, that the minority of a 
community have rights to be protected, as well as the 
majority. The one end of social endeavour should 
be the attainment of strict justice and equal law, 
with free scope to industrial and mental development 
— for all. This is the end, the only end worth a se- 
rious thought: and there is no true humanity, no 
genuine sympathy with man as man, in so working 
on the feelings of the multitude, as to blind them to 
a perception of the end, in a fanatical enthusiasm 
about some one of the possible means of reaching it. 

Lastly, human brotherhood does not consist in 
patronising the poor. There is something intolera- 
bly offensive in this spirit of affected condescension. 
Our modern philanthropy is not without occasional 
specimens of it. The philosophical coldness that 
keeps aloof from all popular movements, yet honours 
the abstract ideal of humanity, devoutly dwelt upon 
in the visions of studious contemplation — is infinite- 
ly more respectable and far more deserving of trust. 
The cant of humanity always betrays an inward hol- 
lowness and lack of heart. Men pretend an inter- 
est which they do not really feel, and put on an air 
of familiarity which ill disguises the spirit of aristo- 
cratical insolence harbouring in the breast. They 
think how kind and good it is, with their refined 
manners and cultivated minds to step down from 



168 CHRISTIAN" ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

their elevated position, and mingle thus freely and 
easily in a crowd of ignorant and unpolished men. 
They are profoundly conscious of what they are 
doing. Self is predominant over humanity. They 
fancy all eyes must be upon them — filled with ad- 
miration at such unheard of self-sacrifice and conde- 
scension. They never dream, that there may be far 
truer and nobler men in the multitude which they 
so obligingly patronise. You may sometimes hear 
such persons at public meetings employing language 
— solely for the sake of a moment's popularity — 
which they do not and cannot mean with any ap- 
proach to literal truth, and which they would think 
it very hard, if they were tied down to carry out 
consequentially into the whole of its legitimate ap- 
plications. To take them at their word, you would 
suppose they believed that only one class in society, 
and that the lowest, was entitled to consideration — 
and that to it the time and energy and resources 
of all other classes should be exclusively sacrificed. 
They affect a contempt for the outward advantages 
of their own condition. They disown the society in 
which they habitually move. They profess, they 
have no interest and sympathy except for the poor. 

Now, this exaggerated insincerity vitiates all 
healthy influence over the popular mind at its 
source. Every poor man of plain and unperverted 
understanding sees through such false patronage and 
hypocritical flattery at once. He knows that this is 
not the language of nature and truth. He puts 
himself in the place of the speaker, and perceives 
that it cannot spring from genuine conviction. He 



EXPRESSION OF HUMAN BROTHERHOOD. 169 

feels his reason and his heart alike insulted by a 
challenge to the confidence of his own class, founded 
on the refusal of sympathy to every other class. He 
asks, why the honourable merchant, the benevolent 
country-gentleman, the upright and patriotic peer, 
are to be shut out from his good wishes and kindly 
feeling, simply because the same accident of fortune 
which made him poor, has invested them with riches 
or rank. A better sentiment fills his breast, in the 
remembrance, that they are all men like himself. 
He feels, therefore, that the speaker has not hit the 
living point of the matter ; — that he has come down 
with contempt ill- concealed, to cajole and mislead 
those who in outward condition are below him, in- 
stead of putting forth a brother's sympathy and a 
brother's effort to lift them up into the full con- 
sciousness of inward equality w T ith himself. It is 
the foulest wrong that can be inflicted on the hum- 
bler classes, to lower their standard of morals, senti- 
ment, cultivation and manners, or in any degree 
diminish their respect for the external decencies and 
refinements of life. — Their improvement is only to 
be effected, by stimulating them to aspire after a 
higher condition, and telling them plainly, that they 
must themselves be the authors of their own respec- 
tability. A firm and honest adherence to this rule 
of action, even if it compels the occasional utterance 
of harsh and unpalatable truths, is the test of a gen- 
uine philanthropy : and he who steadily abides by 
it through good and through evil report, will com- 
mand in the final result the deepest respect and trust 
and the largest influence for good, even among 



170 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



those whose short-sighted views and hasty impulses 
he may at times have found it necessary to oppose. 

Of kindred nature with the patronising spirit 
just described, is the obtrusive violation of the poor 
man's home by the insolent fanaticism which as- 
sumes to itself a monopoly of religious truth. In 
contempt of his most sacred rights, there are persons 
bearing the name of Christians, who will force 
themselves in at his door, to probe his conscience 
and take the measure of his creed ;— -who will not 
scruple, with the language of peace on their lips, to 
invade his spiritual freedom and upbraid him for an 
honest exercise of judgment in obtaining where best 
he may, religious light and consolation for himself 
and his children. How different this inquisitorial 
spirit from the spirit of Christ ! That would never 
let us cross the humblest threshold, without a feel- 
in of human love and reverence — without the so- 
lemn thought — c Here dwells a child of God, the 
possessor of a free, responsible, immortal mind.' In 
the presence of humanity every genuine nature is 
touched with a holy veneration, and the vile accents 
of a patronising condescension die away on the 
speechless lips. When the virtuous father of a 
family stands before us, great in native worth of 
soul, amidst all the outward tokens of poverty and 
an humble calling — what a feeling of honour and 
sympathy goes forth spontaneously from our hearts, 
to greet that truest expression of human respecta- 
bility ! As we look on his honest, open counte- 
nance, where no evil passion or sinful habit has left 
its deforming trace, and listen to the earnest tones 



EXPRESSION OF HUMAH BROTHERHOOD. 1^1 

of his manly voice uttering with plainness and sim- 
plicity the convictions of a genuine heart, we are 
made to feel what is really noble in man. It is we, 
come from what station we may, who are beneath ; 
it is we who have to rise to him. Wq would fain re- 
verse the language of Peter to the prostrate Corne- 
lius, and say — c Brother, lift me up from my lowness, 
that I may be wise and pure and content like thee.' 

We have thus shown, what the spirit of human 
brotherhood is not. Let us now ask, what it is ? 
Where are we to look for it ? — In reverence for man's 
moral and spiritual attributes, and in strenuous 
efforts to rouse, protect and develope them. These 
alone make the man. They invest with a true great- 
ness every diversity of outward circumstance ; and 
wherever they find free scope and ample exercise, 
cherish the inward principle of human dignity and 
happiness. To draw out the latent elements of 
moral and spiritual good in the lower classes, re- 
quires, it is true, great accompanying efforts to im- 
prove their physical and social condition. Only 
these latter objects should never be regarded as 
themselves an end. In the eye of a genuine philan- 
thropy, they are but means to the attainment of a 
far higher end ; — and that end is to unfold the entire 
worth of the inner man — all his heart, all his con- 
science, all his rational and spiritual faculties. A 
process of this kind is not only compatible with 
great diversity of outward condition, but I contend, 
is even promoted by it. The many sides of our 
common nature, its endless treasures of goodness 
and beauty, its manifold capacities of noble endu- 



172 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

ranee and heroic effort — could never be brought to 
light, were it not tried and tested in the most oppo- 
site states of existence, and exposed to the utmost 
variety of external stimulus. A forced uniformity 
of condition would deprive us of these rich results. 
In the great science of society, it must be confessed, 
that we have yet much to learn. History records a 
series of experiments only partially successful, at 
times subsiding into injustice and oppression, and 
then bursting forth in wild abortive efforts at com- 
munism and outward equality. Yet these lessons 
have not been wholly lost on us. Men's minds are 
now more intent than ever on settling the conditions 
of the great problem which is to secure the harmony 
and tranquil progress of the human family. Cast- 
ing off the prejudices inherited from feudal times, 
we are beginning to feel the respect that is due to 
all honest industry, and to perceive that it can only 
nourish in the air of freedom. The important bear- 
ing of a proper adjustment of taxation on the con- 
tentment and energy of the community, is becoming 
a general subject of reflection and inquiry. Our 
municipalities are directing their attention to the 
public health and to the proper structure and drain- 
age of the dwellings of the poor. The demand for 
universal education of a higher order is already a 
popular cry, and likely to swell into a popular en- 
thusiasm. Many and increasing are the opportuni- 
ties offered to every class in all our great towns, for 
the acquisition of knowledge and the cultivation of 
refined and rational tastes. Not a few are the in- 
citements (would they were greater !) to the accu 



EXPRESSION OP HTJMAK BROTHERHOOD. 173 

nrulation of property, and even to the investment of 
it in land. Small properties extensively ramified 
among the working class— the realised fruit of their 
forethought and industry— would tend above every 
thing to pervade society with a spirit of healthful 
conservatism, and, like the attenuated fibres which 
the tap-root of the oak sends out far and wide into 
the soil, help to sustain, erect and firm, the venera- 
ble trunk and springing branches of our time-hon- 
oured constitution. Such are the movements which 
the spirit of human brotherhood dwells on with pro- 
foundest complacency and the most cheering antici- 
pations. Material and secular in their outward as- 
pect, they are the conditions and precursors of the 
loftiest moral advancement. Spiritual men must 
step forth to welcome and aid them, and by the fear- 
less preaching of a manly, earnest and truthful reli- 
gion, breathe into them a higher aim and make them 
subserve a nobler purpose. 

Taking our stand on the vantage-ground of these 
great efforts of social reform, let it be our first ob- 
ject to multiply the number of virtuous and happy 
homes. The domestic hearth is the seed-plot of a 
noble and flourishing commonwealth. All laws are 
vicious, all tendencies are to be deprecated, which 
increase the difficulty of diffusing through every 
rank, the refined and holy influences which are cher- 
ished by the domestic affections. Reckless specula- 
tion among capitalists, disturbing the steady and 
uniform course of employment — and its sure coun- 
terpart, improvidence and debauchery among work- 
men — are the deadliest foes of the household virtues. 



174 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS 01? FAITH AKD DUTY. 

In how small a compass lie all the elements of man's 
truest happiness, if society were only conducted in 
a rational and moderate spirit, and its members of 
every class could be restrained from vicious indul- 
gence and the pursuit of phantoms ! A marriage 
contracted with thoughtfulness and cemented by pure 
and faithful love, when a fixed position is gained in 
the world, and a small fund has been already accu- 
mulated — hard work and frugal habits at the com- 
mencement of domestic life to meet in time the pos- 
sible demands of a future family — a dwelling com- 
fortably furnished, clean, bright, salubrious and sweet 
— children well trained and early sent to school — a 
small collection of good books on the shelves — a few 
blossoming plants in the window — some well-selected 
engravings on the walls — a piano, it may be, a vio- 
]in or a flute to accompany the family concert — 
home made happy in the evening by cheerful tasks 
and mutual improvement, exchanged at times for 
the conversation of friend or neighbour of kindred 
taste and congenial manners — these are conditions 
of existence, within reach of every one who will 
seek them — resources of the purest happiness lost to 
thousands, because a wrong direction is given to 
their tastes and energies, and they roam abroad in 
pursuit of interest and enjoyment which they might 
create in rich abundance at home. This is no ro- 
mantic, visionary picture. It is a sober accessible 
possibility, such as even now, under the pressure of 
many adverse circumstances, is realised in the homes 
of not a few working-men who have learned the art 
of extracting competence from narrow means, and 



EXPRESSION OF HUMAN BROTHERHOOD. 175 

maintaining genuine respectability in a hnmble 
station. 

If this truer estimate of the value and honour of 
life were more generally entertained among mankind 
— the gradations of rank and the differences of so- 
cial position — even those which are most strongly 
marked, and the favourite objects of rhetorical in- 
vective — would only bring more clearly into view, 
through the contrasted diversities of its outward 
manifestation, that inward worth of the universal 
soul which is the bond of human brotherhood. 
"Where all is planed down to one dead level of ex- 
ternal equality, or where the accident of suddenly 
acquired wealth constitutes the only social distinc- 
tion — it may be questioned, whether the spirit of 
genuine humanity is more deeply felt, and whether 
there is a less frequent exhibition of coarse and bru- 
tal selfishness, than where the intercourse of man 
with man is to some extent confined and regulated 
by those lines of demarcation between different ranks, 
which have grown out of the historical antecedents 
of an old country, and so far from indicating a slav- 
ish spirit, are consistent with the highest feelings of 
mutual courtesy and individual self-respect. A vir- 
tuous and -intelligent working-class, exempt alike 
from rudeness and servility, must react with bene- 
ficial effect on the moral condition of the higher 
ranks, and bring them more under the salutary re- 
straint of public opinion : and an aristocracy, that 
without stepping affectedly out of its sphere or re- 
nouncing its ancient traditions, still founds its influ- 
ence on its virtues, and bears itself respectfully and 



176 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

courteously to all men, may be the means of diffus- 
ing a refinement of manners and an elevated tone of 
sentiment through all the classes which are ranged 
beneath it. 

But how childish — how far below the proper aim 
of every humane and thoughtful mind — is this invi- 
dious comparison of rank with rank — of one out- 
ward condition of men and brethren with another ! 
One feels a kind of shame in even alluding to the 
subject. The very entertainment of it seems to be- 
tray a little and a selfish soul. How often must we 
be reminded, that we are all members of God's 
great family ! That we have all been placed where 
we are by his wisdom ! That we have all one com- 
mon heritage of duties and trials, temptations and 
griefs — none spared affliction, because they are high 
— none shut out from blessing, because they are low ! 
And that, when this short scene of earth has passed 
away, all must alike give account of the trust con- 
fided to them, at that solemn tribunal — where the 
lady who now wears the diadem of these realms, 
and the humblest daughter of poverty and toil, will 
bow their heads and bend their knees, side by side, 
before the Father and Judge of all ! If all hearts 
were laid open — if the secrets of all homes from the 
palace to the cottage were exposed to view — there 
would, doubtless, be found a more equitable balanc- 
ing of human conditions — a far more impartial allot- 
ment of the means of human happiness — than the 
superficial aspect of things seems to indicate. Look 
where you will, to the highest or the lowest estate — 
let the disparity of outward circumstances be as 



EXPRESSION OF HUMAN BROTHERHOOD. 177 

great as can be conceived — you will ever observe 
lawless desires, ungovernable appetites and ill disci- 
plined feelings, pride, discontent, envy, hatred and 
selfishness — pursuing their victim through every so- 
cial region with the same deep sense of incurable 
misery, which no splendour and luxury can evade, 
and the heaviest privations of poverty cannot aggra- 
vate. On the other hand, the pure, kind, trustful, 
devout heart, intent on duty and only ambitious of 
usefulness — wherever its scene of action be cast — 
bears in the beaming eye and open brow and glad- 
some voice, unfailing evidence of inward peace and 

The true beauty of humanity lies all within, and 
is rendered more conspicuous by the very diversity 
of its outward garb. The contrast strikes the eye, 
and goes to the heart. How often in surveying the 
great man's splendid mansion and wandering through 
his ancient woods and beautiful gardens — have we 
met with some touching memorial of human affec- 
tion — some record of friend or child or partner 
taken away — some sculptured urn or votive tablet 
commemorative of loves or triumphs or griefs, fast 
fading in the distant past — which affectingly re- 
minded us, that here in the very midst of this 
princely magnificence, hearts like our own once 
throbbed to the common joy and sorrow of our race ! 
And so, when we quit our own comfortable, per- 
haps luxurious, homes to visit the sick or dying bed 
of some poor and virtuous neighbour — and mark, 
how deep is the trust, how calm the hope, how sweet 
and holy the affection, how delicate and tender the 
9 



178 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

attentions — which "bring their soothing ministrations 
to the pain and faintness of yielding nature, and 
transform that lowly room into an outer court of the 
world of light — the very change in the associated 
circumstances makes the truth and reality of those 
blessed influences more perceptible to us, and im- 
prints what is best in our common humanity with a 
deeper love and reverence on our hearts. 

It is possible, that the influences of universal edu- 
cation, a growing respect for all useful labour, and 
a readier command by every class of the means of 
domestic comfort and culture, may in time diffuse 
so general a refinement of mind and manners through 
all ranks, as imperceptibly to efface the social dis- 
tinctions which now exist, and render possible a 
literal fulfilment of the most enthusiastic visions of 
human brotherhood : and perhaps the strongest rea- 
son that can be alleged for not violently destroying 
our present restrictions, is a conviction, that they 
are a needful preparation for the ultimate change, 
and afford the safest and surest means of a gradual 
transition. — In the meantime, let not the barriers of 
separation between different ranks be so impassable, 
as to obstruct a free passage for any who are quali- 
fied to ascend, from a lower to a higher sphere. — To 
exclude them by any artificial test of creed or race, 
is an odious tyranny. Let them rise. They are 
the born aristocracy of heaven. Nevertheless we 
are continually brought back to the great truth, 
which every aspect of society illustrates and con- 
firms, that humanity in all situations, must draw its 
strength and blessing from itself. Wherever on this 



EXPRESSION OF HUMAN BROTHERHOOD. 179 

earth an understanding is active to know and serve 
the truth — wherever a heart beats with kind and 
pure and generous affections — wherever a home 
spreads its sheltering wing over husband and wife 
and parent and child — there under every diversity 
of outward circumstance, the true worth and dignity 
and peace of man's soul are within reach of all. To 
that high and honourable position of self-dependence, 
rich in exhaustless treasures of inward happiness, — 
let us put forth every effort and use all our influence 
to raise up step by step the down-trodden and grovel- 
ling multitudes of our fellow men. 



XI. 

FAITH, THE ASSURANCE OF THE SOUL. 

Mark, v. 36. 
" Be not afraid, only believe." 

Christ bore into human hearts the strong convic- 
tion of a Divine presence, and made men feel the 
invisible Reality that was ever working within them 
and aronnd them. This was the faith which put 
forth a virtue for the moral healing of the soul and 
the tranquillising of its doubts and fears. Death 
had overshadowed with his cold eclipse the late 
bright and happy home of Jairus. His beloved 
child lay stretched in pale unconsciousness. All 
eyes were streaming with tears ; and the voice of 
comfortless woe was heard in his chambers. Sud- 
denly the calm benignity of Christ appears in the 
midst of the mourners — rebuking their want of faith 
and unaffected by their scorn. It falls like sunshine 
on the darkened heart of the parent, and the tumult 
of his grief is hushed at the soothing words — 4 Be 
not afraid, only believe.' 

On this as on other occasions, the words elicited 
from Christ by the ordinary casualties of our ter- 
restrial existence, bring into view some great spiri- 
tual principle, and betray the deep fund of eternal 
truth that lay hid in his inmost soul. We learn 



FAITH THE ASSURANCE OF THE SOUL. 181 

here the power and effect of faith. It puts us into 
the consciousness of a divine presence, and dispels 
all fear. ' Be not afraid, only believe.' How 
mighty is this power ! When it descends into the 
heart's depths — a pure and genuine efflux of the 
Spirit of God — it makes all the difference between 
a life of cheerful blessedness and a life of gloomy 
submission or trembling anxiety. Here are two 
men — beholding the face of the same universe, 
swept along by the same resistless tide of circum- 
stances, possessors of the same desires, affections, 
and capacities. And yet how different is their 
mental state, produced by reflection on the same phe- 
nomena ! — One sees in them ultimate facts, beyond 
which he knows nothing, and can divine nothing. 
There they are. — "Whence they come — why they 
are there — what they are leading to — is to him a 
dark, impenetrable mystery. For himself, his whole 
creed is shut up in two words — existence and non- 
existence. Yesterday, he was nothing ; to-day, he 
is ; to-morrow, he will be nothing again. He looks 
on the countenance of the world ; but to him it is a 
blank. He can trace its outline, and number its 
features ; and give the form and measure of its ma- 
terial constituents ; but he reads no expression there 
— no indication of latent mind. The broad eye of 
heaven beams with no intelligence to him. To him 
no glow of benevolent affection is revealed in the 
mantling blush of fruits and flowers, that suffuses 
the cheek of earth. He feels no silent influence of 
parental love in the warm breath of life that circu- 



182 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



lates around him, and pulsates in the springing 
germ and in the free and happy movement of every 
beast and bird and creeping thing. To him all is 
law, mechanism, mysterious force — no more. Such 
is man's ultimate consciousness, when faith is struck 
out of it. 

The other beholds the same face, but perceives 
also its significance. He reads and interprets its 
benignant expression. He discerns the wonderful 
intellect and the deep heart of love that imprint 
their influence on all the features of the universe. 
He accepts the sympathy that is proffered him, and 
gives himself up to it in full reliance on a higher 
Mind. The warm hue of benevolence which is shed 
over creation, suffices for his genial trust, though 
the scattered shades which chequer it, may be inex- 
plicable. He concludes that they have a purpose, 
though unknown to him. He enjoys the special 
blessing of all good hearts — that he can put con- 
fidence in unexplained intentions, when kindness 
and benevolent forethought have been habitually 
experienced. As we trust the long tried affection 
of a human friend, when for reasons satisfactory to 
him, he now. and then withholds from us his ulti- 
mate purposes ; — so pious souls, acquiescing in ig- 
norance, and conscious of absolute dependence on 
the Parent Mind, dissolve their fears and their 
doubts in perfect faith. They rest in the firm assur- 
ance, that God both can and will do what is best. 
Faith is the joy and support of their being — the 
sunshine which fills their breasts. So different in 



FAITH, THE ASSURANCE OF THE SOUL. 183 

tlieir effect on man's whole life, are the admission 
and the denial of a benevolent Intelligence in the 
government and working of the world. 

Some faith is inevitable from the constitution of 
our minds, though it may not have a sovereign In- 
tellect for its object. All men form expectations, 
and act upon them, for which they can give no rea- 
son. The succession of the seasons, with the vary- 
ing proportions of day and night as the latitude 
recedes from the equator — the ebb and flow of the 
tides — the intervention of eclipses — and the recur- 
rence of periodical winds — are facts on which every 
one relies with perfect confidence. He would be 
thought a madman who hesitated to calculate on 
them, in laying out his future course. Yet no one 
can prove, why the planetary system on whose 
movements these phenomena depend, must keep for 
ever the course which it has hitherto pursued, and 
why a change may not take place in it to-morrow. 
Or if there are grounds which seem to justify a 
trust in the perpetuity of the present order of things, 
they will be found on examination to be moral 
grounds — our reliance on the wisdom and goodness 
of the Supreme Mind. And this inference carries 
us at once into the sphere of religious faith, and 
shows how naturally the lowest and simplest of our 
mental instincts runs up into a spiritual affection. 
In some men faith never rises above this primary 
instinct — that unconscious reliance on the future, 
which is indispensable to all connected and prospec- 
tive action. It discerns the consecutive sequences of 
material things, but apprehends not the higher idea, 



184: CHRISTIAN" ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

indicative of mind, which results from a comprehen- 
sive survey of the entire circle of their harmonious 
relations. The faith which soars above the range 
of mere scientific laws, must carry human analogies 
into the organism of the world, and have its source 
in the affections and moral sentiments. It must 
spring from a spontaneous sympathy with the wis- 
dom and the love which are the hidden soul of all 
material operations — and float around us as a spirit- 
ual reality, responsive to the human heart from the 
deep heart of the universe. Hence the close de- 
pendence of religious faith on our moral condition 
and the supremacy of conscience. Low-thoughted 
selfishness, vicious appetites and worldly anxieties 
limit the vision of the soul to the material laws 
which revolve in narrow cycles round the centre of 
our personal existence, and directly influence the 
sources of our individual gratification or importance. 
Under such restraints, there can of course be no 
wide-extended sympathies, no breadth of view ade- 
quate to embrace the significance of that benignant 
expression which characterizes the largest aspects of 
the universe. There may indeed be a profession of 
religion ; but there can be no living, genuine faith, 
— only some cold, traditional semblance of it, veil- 
ing perhaps a hollow heart and a barren selfishness. 

The first condition, then, of a true faith is the 
free surrender of our minds to what we feel to be the 
sovereign law of all moral being — as revealed by 
conscience within, expressed in the lives of prophets, 
saints and sages without, and reflected with concen- 
trated brightness from the glorious personality of 



FAITH, THE ASSURANCE OF THE SOTJL. 185 

Christ. It will grow and gather strength from 
hearty concurrence with all the requirements of that 
divine law — from generous self-abandonment to all 
high purposes, all noble impulses, all pure affections, 
and every work and word of brave, earnest and faith- 
ful love. We thus put ourselves on the side of God, 
and open our hearts to his inspiration. We ally 
ourselves with the Power that sways the course of 
events. So far as our energies will reach, we put 
ourselves on the side of God's holiness and God's 
strength. As far as our insight will carry us, we 
ally ourselves with God's wisdom and God's truth. 
What mind is there within the circuit of Christian 
influences, that has not at some moment or other felt 
this strong impulse towards God ? It is the solemn 
crisis — the turning-point — of our human destiny, 
when God calls to us from on high, and perhaps will 
never call again. Happy he, who listens and obeys. 
Happy he, who throws himself with all his energy 
and affection into the course which God opens be- 
fore him. If he pursues it, he has got the earnest of 
salvation. From that small seed of incipient faith a 
mighty and enduring trust will grow. Conscience 
will set her seal on the purpose taken. Experience 
will confirm and ratify the suggestions of a pure heart, 
and fix and deepen their influence. God will reward 
the confidence reposed in Him, by the infusion of a 
deeper trust and a holier love. Love will become 
predominant in the mind. All things will be read 
and interpreted in its light. Fear will be overpow- 
ered and expelled, and the dark shades that lingered 
under its influence, will pass away. Man's life will 
9* 



186 CHRISTIAN" ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



undergo a change like that in the family of Jairus, 
healed by the presence of the Son of God, — when 
grief and the fear of death vanished at his approach. 

Fear not, then who believest — for this faith over- 
cometh the world. Realise to thyself the power and 
glory and beauty that must inhere in Infinite Mind. 
Judge from the faint rudiments of mental excellence 
in the wise and virtuous of earth, what must be its 
absolute perfectness in God. Thou hast confidence 
in many a human soul ; and were its strength and 
insight equal to its love, thy confidence would be 
c perfect and entire, wanting nothing.' And hast 
thou less confidence in God, the Parent-Mind — that 
exhaustless source of good, from whose inspiration 
have flowed all those sweet and pure and generous 
affections which cause thee to repose with undoubt- 
ing trust on the bosom of thy friend ? Cherish, then 
— but on far higher grounds — the same blessed 
trust in God. By upright endeavour and holy aspi- 
ration put thyself into harmony with his Spirit ; and 
thy doom is sealed for bliss. Thou wilt bear about 
with thee a charmed life, whose inner peace the 
sorest evils of this life cannot reach. Sometimes 
doubts and apprehensions will haunt the mind 
in its searchings for truth, as if truth were but a 
name, and the thoughts of the wise were spent in 
the chase of shadows. But thon, Christian, hast no 
such fear. Thou dwellest in the presence of the 
living God. Thou knowest, that principle — grounded 
in the eternal laws of mind and emanating from the 
unchangeable essence of God — cannot perish. Thou 
knowest, come what may, the light of truth cannot 



FAITH, THE ASSURANCE OF THE SOUL. 187 

be put out. Thou knowest, that Yirtue can never 
be despoiled of its deathless crown, and that Love 
will always bloom in unfading beauty. Therefore, 
art thou at rest in the depths of thine own soul, 
though for a season the outer world crumble into 
ruins, and its order and harmony be trodden under 
foot. 

Faith lifts us to the conception of an ideal, faintly 
discernible through the endless vista of immortal 
mind — which the actual life of man, even in its best 
and happiest state, never realises. The Present is 
but the infancy of a more glorious Future, slowly 
unfolding itself in the vast counsels of the Almighty. 
Trust in the final realisation of that fair ideal, is our 
best consolation under the disappointments which 
so constantly mock ' our sanguine expectations of 
earthly good. Be not disquieted, when the course 
of events runs most counter to the wishes of the vir- 
tuous and the wise, and seems to frustrate the issue 
that might have been looked for from the general 
tendencies of Providence. You want depth of in- 
sight and comprehensiveness of view, to embrace 
the vast compass and endless ramifications of the 
divine ways. Think, what an atom is this planet — 
and what "a point is all its history — in those abysses 
of space and time which embosom it ! And if there 
be a Mind, perfect through its infinity, which en- 
folds and penetrates all things — how are we whose 
mental vision cannot grasp the universal and the ab- 
solute, competent to measure His purposes, or to 
perceive what is ultimately best for that boundless 
range of influences and complexity of events of 



188 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

which He has the disposal ? Raise yourselves to the 
height of this great thought, and have peace. Let 
the consciousness of your own ignorance, in view of 
the infinite Intelligence, fill you with acquiescence 
and trust. 

Only in the light of this sublime faith, can the 
history of our race be read without despondency. 
"We profess to believe in the progress of the human 
species ; and if we embrace large spaces of time, 
and look at the average result of events, experience 
justifies our faith. Yet, as respects any visible fruit 
in this world, the labours and self-sacrifices of noble- 
minded individuals and even the efforts of energetic 
and virtuous communities, seem often of little ac- 
count in the eye of God. In that long and varied 
chronicle of the past, what records occur page after 
page, of hopeless ruin- and unmerited suffering — of 
civilisation for ever extinguished, and of freedom 
after all its struggles finally trodden out of existence 
by its remorseless foes ! Where are the living faiths 
and breathing literatures — harmonious utterances of 
a nation's inmost soul, — that once gave animation 
and character to wide regions of the East, now sur- 
rendered to sloth and ignominy ? What has become 
of the magnificent cities, the busy harbours, the 
thronged roads, the crowded schools and churches 
of many tracts in Asia and Africa, where arts and 
industry once reigned — where letters and philosophy 
found a favoured seat — where learned and holy men, 
the mental progenitors of our Christian civilisation, 
impregnated with a purer spirit the faith and man- 
ners of their contemporaries? Gone — perished — 



FAITH, THE ASSURANCE OF THE SOUL. 189 

swept away, as by the angel of desolation, from the 
face of the earth — a few lonely ruins, where wild 
beasts and the roving herdsman seek a shelter from 
the heat, the sole traces of their former existence. 
Few things strike the spirit with a deeper sorrow, 
than the spectacle of so many virtuous but abortive 
efforts to establish justice and freedom in the earth. 
That glorious promise of constitutional liberty in the 
early history of many European nations — how was 
it crushed in its opening germ by calamitous acci- 
dents, and buried beneath a weight of priestly and 
regal despotism, under which it has never blossomed 
again ! Why were the brave burghers of Spain, 
anticipating England itself in their noble efforts to 
plant freedom on a municipal and representative 
basis — permitted to be overpowered and brought 
under a servile yoke ? — Is the day of promise passed, 
never more to return ? On a survey of this sad ex- 
perience, fear seizes us, when we look at Europe 
now. Are despotic force and frantic revolution always 
to share the earth in terrible alternation between 
them ? Do the voice of the wise, and the arm of the 
brave, and the blood of the patriot, go for nothing 
in the wild conflict that is desolating the earth ? 
Shall ancient nationalities and the long precedent of 
noble histories be extinguished by the cold-blooded 
treachery and selfishness, which counts human rights 
as so many words on paper, that may be effaced by 
the stroke of a pen ? Yea, efforts that sprang from 
the purest philanthropy — that struck off the fetters 
of the slave and paid the price of his emancipa- 
tion — even these have failed to realise as yet the 



190 CHEISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

generous hope in which they were conceived, and 
only re-inforce the mournful truth, that good in this 
world is not always the overt and immediate fruit- of 
good. 

What should be the effect of this afflictive retro- 
spect on our minds ? Despair — and sluggish fear — 
and the passive relinquishment of the world to the 
power of evil ? Oh no ; it is precisely in cases such 
as these, that faith comes up to our aid and puts 
courage into the heart, where but for it we should 
be paralysed with hopeless sorrow. We must strive 
to anticipate the thought of God, and more widely 
generalise our views, and not let partial and insula- 
ted results disconcert and oppress us. We must 
tranquillise our minds with the aspect of that solemn 
eternity which shuts in our earthly life on every 
side, and reflect on the possible issues to present 
events that may be preparing for all human souls in 
its impenetrable bosom. From the actual which 
surrounds us, we must ascend to the ideal which 
faith permits us to conceive. We must live in the 
mind, and see, as it were, with the eye of the all- 
seeing God ; — not, however, to forego the responsi- 
bilities of our own free-will, or to become dreamy 
and helpless visionaries — but to gain a firmer re- 
solve and a clearer insight, to hope on, when all 
human power seems against us — to preserve un- 
weakened our trust in great principles, and to main- 
tain still, calmly and undauntedly, the battle for 
truth and right. Such a faith, and such fruits of 
faith, bring their own reward. God may not allow 
us to have any visible part in the redemption of the 



FAITH, THE ASSURANCE OF THE SOUL. 191 

world from its wrongs : but we shall at least have 
thrown our contribution of influence — such as it was 
— into that great stream of tendency which is ever 
accumulating against the strong-holds of falsehood 
and injustice, and must in time bring them down. 
In the conflict with evil, we shall have purified and 
blessed our own souls and transmitted a lesson of 
virtue to future generations. ' Be not afraid, then, 
only believe.' 

Again, fear not for yourselves and for your 
worldly condition — whatever changes may overtake 
you, and however you may sink in wealth and sta- 
tion, if these things be not the just consequences of 
your own folly and perverseness. Then indeed 
they are penalties, and must be borne as such. But 
if otherwise, see rather an appointment of mercy in 
whatever happens, and take it as it was sent. You 
will thus by your own mental energy, transform it 
into good. Faith will give you strength to meet 
new duties, and master all your difficulties. Jt will 
come over you with invigorating enect, like a breath 
from God himself, when you pour out your soul in 
morning prayer, and look forward to the trials and 
toils of the coming day. Consider what your cir- 
cumstances require, and manfully accommodate 
yourself to them. Do right. Wait on God. Ally 
yourself with his providence, and trust in Him. 
Resolution and effort will rise up to the demand of 
all your wants. As yet you cannot tell, what a 
blessing may be hidden for you in this adversity. 
For while the providence of God seems often to the 
outward eye, irretrievably adverse in the case of 



192 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

nations, — individuals, under the heaviest misfortunes 
that may overwhelm their country or their time, have 
always the power through vigour of mind and moral 
faithfulness, to extricate and raise themselves. 
Amid the wreck of States — in an age strewed 
with ruins — noble souls will still rear their heads 
untouched ; — as plants whose roots survive under 
huge and tumbled fragments of antique mason- 
ry, creep out into the light and climb the high- 
est projections, and wreath with their bright fes- 
toons of leaf and flower, the incumbent mass that 
has crushed all grosser materials into dust. It is a 
glorious fact, that in the deepest of this world's de- 
pressions, one individual has often, by strong faith 
and virtuous effort, exerted a vast redeeming in- 
fluence over the condition of society. Think of this, 
ye whose hearts are ready to fail, and it will keep 
you from despair, and fill you with fresh energy for 
every struggle and endeavour it may be needful to 
sustain. Were such a faith more general, states 
could not fall. It is the want of faithful, noble- 
minded individuals that brings states to ruin. Even 
then, when all the glory of the world has perished, 
and nothing remains but submission to the over- 
powering force of circumstances — peace and blessing 
may be found within — in the sanctuary of the heart, 
where affection nestles, and right principles have 
still a refuge, and the Spirit of God is ever present 
to counsel and to cheer. ISTever is virture left with- 
out sympathy — sympathy dearer and tenderer for 
the misfortune that has tried it, and proved its fidel- 
ity. "What is sweeter than the sympathy of the 



FAITH, THE ASSURANCE OE THE SOUL. 193 

true-hearted few who honour us for what we are, and 
will not forsake us, because the world has cast us off? 
Nay, if we are left all alone, what is sweeter than 
the silent sympathy of God, and the peace of our 
own thoughts ? That Divine Friend abideth with 
the pure in heart for ever. 4 Be not afraid, only 
believe.' 

Lastly, fear not death. There where knowledge 
ceases, faith should strongest prove. If you have 
truly believed in Gocl, you will feel, that death only 
remits you more entirely into his power ; and that 
conviction should give you peace. If death were a 
resolution into nothingness — the extinction of the 
mysterious force which has held together in vital 
union for a brief sum of years, a few particles of 
dust — you might then give way to fear, or gloomy 
resignation be your only alternative. But though 
you comprehend not death with all its consequences 
— this at least you know, that it gives you back into 
the hands of the living God — that God, whom you 
have found, when you have sought Him with all 
your heart, always accessible and ever near — and 
who will not abandon you, when more than ever 
you need His support — when you relinquish your 
hold of all that you have clung to on earth, and go 
to Him alone, with whom is lodged the unsearchable 
disposal of your future doom. Faith only discerns 
and grasps the invisible realities of the future life. 
Hold up. her lamp and look Death calmly in the 
face — that last unfailing messenger from God, who 
brings up the solemn procession of our mortal years, 
as one after another they rise out of the dark depths 



194: CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

of the future, and flit across the present scene, and 
vanish away in the dim, dissolving past. When 
the shade deepens on your descending way — when 
the eye grows dim — when the hands tremble and 
the knees fail — when the murmurs of the receding 
world die faintly on the ear — when friends look on 
you with an expression of tenderer love, as though 
they might never look on you again — then know 
that the hour of your departure draweth nigh, and 
commend your sinking spirit to God. He will hear 
you if you call upon Him then, and stretch forth a 
Father's arm to bear you up in the awful moment 
of transition. £ Be not afraid ; then as ever, only 
believe,' 



XII. 



THE SPIRIT OF THE COMMANDMENTS AND THE 
SPIRIT OF LIFE. 

Matthew, xix. 17. 
"If thou wilt enter into life, keep the commandments." 

In their original utterance these words — 'life' 
and 'commandments' — must have been understood, 
as they were doubtless meant, in an outward sense ; 
— the former referring to' the expected kingdom of 
the Messiah, and the latter denoting the positive 
moral law contained in the decalogue or deduced 
from it. They conveyed the idea of something to 
be done for something to be gained — the idea of a 
task and of a reward. Such an idea was in accord- 
ance with an elementary conception of human rela- 
tions to God. Anything more refined and spiritual 
could in that age hardly have taken effect on the 
actual condition of opinion. But the idea lay open 
to the perversion — that the service and the recom- 
pense, in other words, the condition and the result — 
did not grow out of the original constitution of the 
universe, but were appointed by the arbitrary will 
of the Sovereign Ruler, simply to express his ab- 
solute authority or illustrate his gratuitous mercy. 
Under this form the idea passed into the Christian 



196 CHKISTIAN ASPECTS OP FAITH AND DUTY. 

church, and reached in the course of centuries, the 
furthest limits of fanatical extravagance. In the 
middle ages, the notions of ecclesiastical perfection 
—all the qualities that were believed to make up the 
character of a saint — receded to the greatest dis- 
tance from the natural morality of the conscience 
and the heart. Separation from human affections 
and domestic charities- — abstinence from innocent 
enjoyments — the renunciation of useful activity and 
healthful interests— such was the discipline imposed 
by the Church on her chosen servants, to free their 
souls from the pollutions of a state that lay under - 
its Maker's curse, and to fit them for immediate en- 
trance on the joys of heaven. Earth and heaven 
were contradictions in the scheme of Providence : 
the fruition of one involved the surrender of the 
other. Earth's blessings were not to be relished — 
scarcely to be used. The pilgrim must hasten 
through them with fear and trembling, lest in tarry- 
ing his robe should contract some stain that would 
exclude him from the choirs of the blessed. 

We can see a reason for this intense distrust of 
the world, when the Gospel was first preached. It 
was the natural reaction of pure and fervent minds, 
in which the religious element had burst forth with 
a new life — against the profound corruption, the all- 
pervading carnality and worldliness, of the heathen 
civilisation. Without so sharp a distinction of the 
ideas of heaven and earth — so vivid a presentiment 
of the contrast between them — the new Religion 
would never have broken the moral torpor of the 
world, or begun its great work of spiritualising the 



THE SPIRIT OF THE COMMANDMENTS. 197 

souls of men. But every general impulse has a 
tendency to run into excess. One element of hu- 
man error, though inseparable perhaps from divine 
truth on its first annunciation, and even necessary 
to its rapid and extensive reception — will swell into 
disproportionate magnitude unless carefully checked, 
and perpetuate itself far beyond the period, when it 
could be of any collateral service in the moral re- 
novation of the world. The brutal sensuality and 
bloodthirstiness, the stoic pride and cold-hearted 
ambition, against which the saints and martyrs of 
the ancient Church set up the protest of their warn- 
ing voice and ascetic example, are now — thanks to 
the principles which they diffused ! gradually dying 
out over the whole civilised world. Juster views 
of life's duties and of human rights and of inter- 
course among nations, are silently making their way 
against old prejudices and old interests. The tri- 
umph of the commercial over the warlike spirit— 
the deepening cry for the total abolition of slavery 
— the unceasing diffusion of education — the silent 
power of the press — and those wonderful means of 
rapid locomotion and instantaneous communication 
of thought between the remotest points on the sur- 
face of the globe — are all creating a vast chasm 
between ancient and modern societies, which de- 
mands an altered treatment and application of the 
traditional doctrines of Religion, to adjust them to 
the new point of view from which they must now 
be surveyed. 

The arts of peace, wide mentaiculture, especially 
the prosecution of physical science, and the accumu- 



198 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

lation of material riches, are the objects to which, 
the energies of mankind are in this age especially 
directed ; and if these are attended by temptations 
and dangers of their own, they are also giving birth 
to a new class of virtues of no mean or ignoble aim. 
When men are conscious, that they are fulfilling in 
the highest sense their duty to God and their fellow 
creatures, by the vigorous application of all their 
powers to develope the varied resources of human 
well-being and happiness — -it is an unmeaning cant 
and hypocrisy, sure to disgust many honest and 
right-minded men and to alienate them from all Ke- 
ligion— to call upon them in language, adapted to 
a very different condition of mind, to renounce all 
care and interest for the present world, and to fix 
their whole souls on that invisible state, which the 
most spiritual minds find so much difficulty in rea- 
lising, and which is most easily conceived, as the 
development and completion of aims and efforts 
honourably pursued on earth. As man's nature 
opens under the manifold stimulants of an advancing 
civilisation, it will no more be satisfied with phrases, 
but insist on realities. The verbal decisions of the 
past will no longer suffice for its contentment. We 
must put the interpretation of our own awakened 
consciences and quickened intellects on the great 
principles of faith and duty transmitted to us by 
Christ ; and in the life and the commandments of 
which he spake in the text, we must find a deeper 
and more spiritual meaning, than it was competent 
for that first age to draw out of his words. 

This remark must not be misunderstood. I would 



THE SPIRIT OF THE COMMANDMENTS. 199 

not sublimate the primitive essence of Christian 
truth, to condense it again in some concrete form of 
modern philosophy. To all such spiritual alchemy 
I am wholly opposed. The Gospel message bears 
with it through all ages an imperishable soul of 
faith and love, though clothed with ever-changing 
forms in its ceaseless transmigration from one state 
of human society to another ; and in the living power 
of that soul, as revealed in the words and acts of 
Christ, I would ever seek the inner principle of those 
new duties which rise upon us with higher claims 
as humanity pursues its onward course. The one 
eternal object of the Gospel, prepared by Hebrew 
prophets and heathen sages, consummated in Christ, 
and from age to age renewed by the holy men who 
have inherited his spirit — is to bring us back from 
our wanderings in folly, selfishness and sin, to God, 
our Father ; to unite our hearts and wills in living 
communion with Him ; and to incite us through the 
impulse of a strong and transforming affection to 
work freely, trustfully, and rejoicingly in and with 
and for Him alone. This is the true Gospel of Christ 
— 4 the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever.' From 
this point of view all our duties must be estimated, 
and the measure taken of our loftiest and remotest 
hopes. 

What does the Gospel, so understood, demand of 
us ? It calls upon us, as free and intelligent beings, 
to work with the Sovereign Spirit of wisdom and 
love. That is real virtue. Nothing else can put us 
in a right relation towards God. But God is our 
Father. So regarding Him, we cannot suppose Him 



200 CHEISTIAIT ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

to will gratuitous suffering ; and the whole structure 
and tendency of his creation may satisfy us, that we 
have not erred in this a priori conception of His 
design. Mysterious in parts, it is clearly beneficent 
in its leading purpose and general result. The worst 
evils are thrown into it, by man's perverse resistance 
to its laws. Artificial pains and self-inflicted morti- 
fications cannot be in harmony with the divine eco- 
nomy of things. To reject the good and the beau- 
tiful which Providence offers for blameless enjoy- 
ment to the pure mind, betrays more hatred of the 
world than love of God. To keep the command- 
ments in the largest and noblest sense, is not mere 
abstinence, a simple negation of impulse and action, 
enforced by £ Thou shalt not ' — but hearty and ener- 
getic co-operation with the Divine "Will, for the pro- 
duction of all good far and wide, and the freest self- 
development of a spiritual nature through reason, 
conscience and affection, in harmony with its origi- 
nal constitution, its assigned sphere of action, and 
its indicated end. 

It is true, that pain and effort and self-sacrifice 
are often essential to the full accomplishment of this 
divine work — not for their own sake, but to over- 
come the effects of previous evil, which have been 
allowed to accumulate through long self-neglect, 
or brought upon life by the violence and injustice 
of others. We perceive on reflection, that our own 
vicious habits and affections have raised up barriers 
between ourselves and God ; or that we are so cir- 
cumscribed by the oppressive power of tyrannical 
and wicked men, that we cannot freely obey our con- 



THE SPIRIT OF THE COMMANDMENTS . 201 

sciences, and use, "as we see that we ought to use, 
the resources of good which Providence has put 
within our reach. These evils must be overcome. 
They lie on the threshold of a religious life. Our 
sinful habits must be corrected ; our evil affections 
rooted out ; will, conscience and feeling must be 
brought into harmony, that we may become perfect 
masters of ourselves. Whatever is unjust or inhu- 
mane in our relations with others, must be resisted 
and overpowered, that we may have free and wide 
scope for independent action, and the fullest play of 
our moral and spiritual affections. For if it be true, 
as Paul says, ' Where the spirit of the Lord is, there 
is liberty,' it is not less true, that where there is no 
liberty inward and outward, the spirit of the Lord 
cannot be. 

Man's life seems often spent in efforts, not whol- 
ly successful, to achieve this liberty ; but it is not, 
therefore, spent in vain. The character is strength- 
ened and ennobled b/ every earnest and sincere en- 
deavour to realise our convictions of the right and 
true. There is no satisfaction so sweet as the con- 
sciousness of vanquished difficulty and asserted jus- 
tice. There is no reflection so delightful as that of 
handing down- a better and a happier world to our 
children, and our children's children. But this 
struggle with evils of artificial creation — this war- 
fare with tyranny and intolerance— this life-long 
self-sacrifice of the high-minded and virtuous— is 
not the essential, nor will it be the permanent con- 
dition of humanity on earth, though some would 
fain keep it so, to justify their own narrow and mis- 
10 



202 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH ANT) DUTY. 



erable theology. These things are but preparatory 
— the birth-throes of a better time ;■ — and though 
there must ever remain enough of conflict with 
divers forms of evil without and within, to furnish 
our moral discipline, and stimulate our latent pow- 
ers into activity — beyond the havoc and disorder 
which girt in with dark and frowning aspect our 
immediate view, the mental eye discerns the distant 
peaks of that brighter future, when this earth will 
no more be a vast battle-field of hatred and op- 
pression, but a blooming garden for the abundant 
growth of all those seeds of good which the Creator 
has scattered on every soil and sown in every heart. 
Unless all the tendencies and indications of the 
world's history deceive us, this is the future which 
awaits us; and to prepare for it by intelligent dis- 
course respecting it, we must give up the worn out 
and unmeaning diction of a large part of our cur- 
rent theology. We must breathe the eternal spirit 
into new modes of speech, l^e must still address 
ourselves to that deep faith in God and goodness 
which lies hid in every human breast • but we must 
not attempt to call it forth by the extinct magic of 
phrases, which reason rejects and from which the 
affections recoil. What are the commandments that 
are everlastingly obligatory on man ? Nothing ar- 
bitrary — nothing conventional — a creation of time 
and place, and positive institution, enforced by out- 
ward authority ; but rather the varied applications 
of one unchanging law, grounded in our moral con- 
stitution, and moulding jt to its destined perfection. 
Of this law — the principle is a spirit of loving sym- 



THE SPIRIT OF THE COMMANDMENTS. 203 

pathy with God ; and its fulfilment, the application 
of that spirit, under the guidance of reason, to the 
endless objects and interests of every part of human 
life. 

There is a relative, as well as a more general, 
perfection in man, which must not be lost sight of 
in examining the question of his proper vocation in 
life. There is required of him not only a culture of 
his whole being as a man, but also a diligent and 
faithful adaptation of certain of his powers to the 
particular circumstances in which he is placed. 
Life's purpose is only adequately accomplished, in 
discharging both these claims ; and indeed the more 
limited service is a necessary condition of the gen- 
eral development. You find yourself, then, occupy- 
ing a given position in the world. It has its appoint- 
ed duties — its special opportunities of usefulness — 
trials also, difficulties and temptations of its own. 
Take your lot, as it is assigned you, without mur- 
muring. Make the best of it : and if in the eyes of 
men it seems unhonoured and unenviable, ennoble it 
by your own spirit, and work your way through it 
by character and honest industry, to something bet- 
ter and happier. If, on the other hand, you find it 
accord with your inclination, and open before you 
a fair prospect of worldly advancement — be assured 
there is nothing irreligious in honorably aiming at 
success and eminence in it, and still less in openly 
avowing, that such is your object. Every pursuit 
which conduces to the welfare of the world, has its 
appropriate honor attending it ; and a genuine vir- 



204 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

tue is developed by enthusiasm for what is highest 
in our own line of action. Yon may treat life as a 
problem, which has to be wrought out to a success- 
ful result, with certain moral conditions attached to 
it. Do not, because it looks difficult, timorously 
shrink from attempting the solution ; but work 
through every part of it, whether you get the whole 
result or not, without violating one of its moral 
conditions. Draw the utmost from it that it will 
yield, for temporal prosperity, for social weight and 
position, for honour, usefulness, mental culture and 
refined enjoyment — consistently with the strictest 
integrity, with health and the exercise of the affec- 
tions, with a remembrance of the end of life and a 
cheerful submission to the Divine Will. "Whatever 
your vocation in life — -whether you labour with the 
head or with the hand — whether you write books, 
or manufacture cloth — whether your ships cross 
every sea, or your whole stock in trade is contained 
within the four walls of your humble shop — whe- 
ther you sit on the bench of justice, or earn your 
honest wages from week to week — honour your work 
as assigned you by God, who regards not its subject- 
matter, but the spirit in which it is performed, — 
and, as in his sight, with a loyal and devoted heart, 
strive to be outdone by no one in the completeness 
and efficiency of its execution. This is the healthy 
view of our human world. Contentment, comfort, 
abundance — depend on its wide diffusion. It would 
put every one in his proper place, and fit him with 
his proper task. It would let none be idle, and 
leave none in want. It would abolish useless 



THE SPIRIT OF THE COMMANDMENTS. 205 

privilege, and bring all under the constraint of 
wholesome duty. This view reconciles earth and 
heaven. While we are in the world, it makes us, 
in the best of senses, friends with the world, — but 
not less fitted for heaven, when we pass away. It 
is also the honest and sincere view. Thousands 
who disown it, act upon it ; and none more so, and 
with a keener eye even to selfish advancement, than 
some who put forth an exclusive claim to the relig- 
ious character. Such is the course of action which 
contributes to relative perfection, by linking our in- 
dividual lives through specific duties with the gen- 
eral well-being of the world. 

But with duties of this description growing out 
of our particular circumstances, a higher culture 
must be associated. First, under this head come 
the affections, which have so large an influence in 
promoting a more general and purely human per- 
fection. A man without affections, is at best but a 
reasoning machine. As you cherish your human- 
ity, and wish to prepare it for everlasting commu- 
nion with God, let your affections be cultivated with 
ardour and purity through all the successive periods 
of life. Let each blossom forth beautiful and ap- 
propriate "in its own season. Let none be nipped 
by untimely cares, or eaten away by the rust of sel- 
fishness, or dashed to the ground in its fresh bloom 
by the gusts of wild passion and lawless appetite. 
Let there be time and place for all — each passing 
by imperceptible gradations into its successor — for 
youth's sweet loves and open-hearted friendships — 
for the firmer attachments of maturer years — for the 



206 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

sacred joys of home — for the blessed anxieties of 
children's education and settlement in life — for the 
new interests of the second generation — and for that 
gentler flow of kind and holy feeling which gathers 
into it the balmiest memories of the past, and drops 
its freshening dew on the quiet hour of life's decline. 
Go not from the world with the joyless conscious- 
ness of those, to whom the fountains of its purest 
bliss have been sealed — whose retrospect of life is 
an arid waste, because the waters of the heart have 
not been permitted to gush freely over it, and clothe 
it with herbage and shade. He has not lived to a 
true moral purpose, nor drawn from life the rich 
experience that it ought to yield, whose bosom has 
not warmly glowed through every changing phasis 
of interest or relationship, with the tender or gen- 
erous or solemn emotions that were appropriate to 
each. 

Further, you have a mind, that is not merely an 
instrument of outward action, but has a value of its 
own, and may become a treasury of inward wealth, 
through all time. Cultivate this precious gift for 
its own sake. If wholly concentrated on the objects 
of a secular calling, it may warp and contract ; while 
the same practical exercise, if associated with gen- 
eral culture, will only give it vigour and acuteness. 
Examine it well, and see what elements it contains. 
If you find in it any peculiar aptitude or remarkable 
endowment — memory, invention, poetic fancy, pow- 
er of reasoning or quickness of observation — call 
forth that indwelling faculty, and direct it to pur- 
suits in which it is born to excel. As far as cir- 



THE SPIRIT OF THE COMMANDMENTS. 207 

cumstances afford you scope, resolve that tlie one 
or the many talents which you may possess, shall 
not lie in you una wakened and powerless, but shall 
come out and do fitting work for others' good and 
your own ennoblement, in such measure as God has 
ordained, and in cheerful response to the invitations 
which announce His pleasure to the observant mind. 
Every one who honestly looks for it, will find some- 
thing peculiarly his own — something which no one 
else is either placed in circumstances, or endowed 
with qualities, to do equally well. Therein lies his 
appointed work, noble and beautiful because it is 
his own. In that field he will reap his proper fame 
and glory. We miss the true end of our being, be- 
cause we heed not the voice of nature, and listen to 
the false suggestions of prejudice and vanity. Be 
satisfied with what belongs to you. Draw out your 
hidden power, not be withheld by a false modesty 
from making an honest and courageous use of it. 
In such an effort you will be fulfilling the highest 
commandment of God. 

Again, this world is full of beauty — full of inno- 
cent gladness. Open your inmost sense to all the 
influences of what is brightest and happiest in the 
scenes around you. Let the spirit be clear and 
transparent, to receive and transmit these blessed 
influences of the Creator's love, and send out the 
light of them on other hearts. Only a pure and 
gentle soul can feel them. Keep yours so, that 
they do not come to you in vain. There is impiety 
in letting all this beauty rise and set on us daily un- 
felt. To sympathise with the loveliness which blooms 



208 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

and sparkles in every aspect of this terrestrial para- 
disej is silent praise— that worship of the heart, more 
andible to the ear of God, than the chanted litany 
of the cathedral. No rare and favoured scenes are 
wanted to kindle this purest spirit of devotion. 
Wherever the earth teems and blossoms beneath onr 
feet — wherever the bright arch of heaven bends 
over our heads — the simplest objects of the garden 
and the field, clothed in the fitting livery of each 
season as it comes, and set off by the rich lights of 
the ever-changing skies — suffice to encircle our daily 
walks with beauty, and fill the quiet, loving heart 
with a sweet and holy joy which comes to the lips 
in the unbidden words — 4 how glorious are thy 
works, O God !' And how often have these things 
come and gone, and we hardly marked them as they 
passed ! Yes, year after year brings up the solemn 
procession of the months, and leaves perhaps not one 
bright impression on our souls. Treasures of unsus- 
pected beauty abound in this universe, which our 
dull eyes never see, and our worldly, selfish hearts 
cannot enjoy. We have dissolved the communion 
with nature. Our artificial habits and contrariety 
to her laws, have shut us out from all acquaintance 
with the finest expressions of her divine countenance. 
Who that is enslaved, as most are, to our conven- 
tional distribution of the hours, has not felt a deep 
reproach for ungrateful neglect enter his soul, when 
some fortunate accident has made him a spectator 
of the glories of the rising day ? — The grand silence 
of earth and skies, just broken by the faint twitter 
of awakening life — the pure freshness that breathes 



THE SPIRIT OF THE COMMANDMENTS . 209 



over the yet untainted world — the exquisite purple 
of the eastern hills edged with a silvery rim of light, 
deepening into broader and more lustrous gold — the 
pale, cold grey of receding night where moon and 
stars still beautiful are dimly vanishing — the rich, 
influent tide of day, so different from the melting 
softness of its ebbing hues, that is reflected every 
moment with increasing sharpness and force from 
the objects over which it rolls, and that lights up as 
with the joyousness of hope into boundless brilliancy 
the dewy womb of morning — these effects, so rapid 
in their succession and so glorious, so like a new 
creation — take us back to the beginning of time, and 
transport us to the Eden of our first parents, and 
make us feel like them, in the presence of these 
sublime transitions of unchanging nature, that the 
spirit of the living God is around us.* And shall 
we go from this world without once tasting the ban- 
quet of sweets which the Divine munificence has 

* In the earliest ages, the ' break of day' seems to have been 
viewed by man with mingled feelings of poetry and devotion, and to 
have awakened solemn thoughts of the unchanging perpetuity of the 
universe. The most beautiful of the ancient Hindu hymns are ad- 
dressed to Ushas (the dawn.) — 'White-shining, many-tinted, the 
daughter of heaven, young, white-robed — dissipating the darkness, 
coming in her car, drawn by purple steeds — following the path of the 
mornings that have passed, and first of the endless mornings that are 
to come — Ushas arouses living beings, and awakens every one that 
lay as dead. For how long a period is it that the dawns have risen ? 
For how long a period will they rise, still desirous to bring us light? 
Those mortals who beheld the pristine Ushas dawning have passed 
away ; to us she is now visible ; and they approach who may behold 
her in after times.' — H. H. Wilson's Translation of the Rig-Veda- 
Sanhita, p. 298. 

10* 



210 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

provided for us ? Thousands have done so, and 
deemed themselves pious men; though their eye 
was never raised from the dull soil which they daily 
paced, and the page whereon God has written his 
brightest thoughts, was to them a blank. 

Think not thou art keeping the commandments, 
if thou close up thy sense to any manifestation of 
thy Creator's love in the scenes which encompass 
thee ; but know, thou wilt best prepare thy soul for 
heaven, by steeping it in the spirit of heavenly beau- 
ty, by making thyself familiar with all joyous and 
lovely things, and carrying away in thy heart the 
rich extract of their mingled influences, as a cordial 
for darker and sadder hours. A life without joy is 
a life without religion. Pain and grief must of 
course have their share in the texture of our mortal 
discipline ; but assuredly there is something wrong 
within, or something exceptional in rare misfortune 
without, if sadness gives a dominant colour to the 
life — if it is not relieved by the light of hours where- 
in the spirit of beauty and blameless enjoyment 
largely reigns — such hours as good men may own 
without a blush they dearly prize, and a God of love 
will not condemn. 

Art and literature — those choicest products of 
man's spiritual activity — wha£ are they but embod- 
iments of the subtile spirit of beauty which floats 
over the face of the universe and penetrates to its 
living heart ? And why do they spring forth, and 
perpetuate themseh^es in undying forms from age 
to age — but that men might fill their homes with 
the concentrated essence of what is holiest and best, 



THE SPIRIT OF THE COMMANDMENTS. 211 

and surround themselves at all hours with the re- 
flected light of the Divine benevolence? It were 
well, it should be felt throughout society, down into 
its humblest ranks, that the purpose of life is unac- 
complished, and the designed effect of its discipline 
lost, if the words of the wise and the inspirations of 
the poet and the artist, do not constantly mingle 
their purer and brighter influence with the turbid 
flow of worldly sorrows and cares — if the spirit of 
beauty does not fill at times with a glow from hea- 
ven, the dark and heavy shades where myriads of 
the human race wear out their days. 

Once more, this universe is the dwelling-place 
of God, It is not a silent, tenantless palace, through 
whose labyrinthine passages and sculptured halls we 
stray for a brief space between the cradle and grave 
— forlorn and desolate, dismayed at our own echoes, 
with no voice from the inner sanctuary to give an 
answer to our inquiries. There is One within, in- 
visible but ever-present, who invites us to spiritual 
communion, and when our prayers go up to Him, 
responds in a shower of silent blessing on the heart. 
Wouldst thou extract from life all its strength of 
hidden peace and joy ; maintain, O man, a perpe- 
tual converse with thy God, See Him in all things. 
Own Him as the living Presence in which thou 
abidest for ever. This consciousness is the only true 
life ; and if we keep the commandments to their 
spirit, we shall pass into it. Nothing more is needed 
for the perfect happiness of man. 

One solemn consideration remains. What is the 
end of these things I Kichly as we may have ga- 



212 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

thered wisdom and knowledge and enjoyment from 
our varied experience of the world — though the 
spirit of the commandments may have yielded us 
freely the spirit of life — the great change comes at 
last. We bloom, but to fade. We live, that we 
may die. — O Death, thou insoluble mystery, what 
art thou ? Into what wilt thou conduct us ? What 
strange scene does thy dark veil intercept from our 
view ? Dost thou mercifully spare us the dizzy look 
into the abyss of annihilation ? or art thou but a gate 
from the narrow womb of time into some new life 
of wider joy and renovated love ? — There is but one 
reply. When the awful hour arrives, they who have 
most fully developed the resources of this terrestrial 
being, they who have extracted from it the purest 
elements of wisdom and happiness, — will derive 
from their past experience, the surest ground of 
hope and trust towards God. Familiarity with His 
thoughts and sympathy with His Spirit, will open 
their mental vision to the apprehension of higher 
verities looming on it dimly through the vastness of 
the Infinite. They will rely on the endless re- 
sources of the Divine Love. On retrospect, they 
will feel, that this mortal life, rich as it may have 
been in blessing and instruction, is yet an uncom- 
pleted fact ; — that neither all its ends have been ac- 
complished, nor all its powers developed, nor all its 
resources exhausted, nor all its loves satisfied, nor 
all its aspirations attained. In faith, therefore, they 
will look to Him whose mercies are unfailing, for 
the final realisation of the plan which His provi- 
dence commenced, and for the fulfilment of expec- 



THE SPIRIT OF THE COMMANDMENTS. 213 

tations which the coincidence of His moral govern- 
ment with tendencies by Him implanted in the soul, 
conld not fail to inspire. The words of Christ — that 
last and greatest of the prophets — that authentic 
messenger of God — proclaim with emphatic weight 
the promise of immortality. His spirit imbues the 
soul with a higher vitality. "Whosoever liveth and 
believeth in him — in his spirit of faith and holiness 
and love — shall never die. 



XIII. 



THE BLESSING OF SORROW. 
Isaiah, liii. 3. 
" A man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.'' 

These words have been understood with great 
unanimity as a prophetic description of Christ. More 
truly perhaps they are the designation of a class, of 
which Christ stands out as the culminating example 
fulfilled in him, as he fulfilled the highest prophetic 
function and realised the great ideal of human duty 
and suffering. On either view they set forth a 
weighty truth, and proclaim an enduring law in the 
moral government of God ; — that they who are se- 
lected to accomplish the greatest ends of Providence, 
inevitably encounter in the course of action assigned 
them, a large amount of pain and toil and grief, 
which seems pure evil to the spell-bound eye of the 
multitude, but in its reaction on the moral nature 
often tends above every influence to purify and exalt 
it. If man be created for spiritual excellence, in 
spiritual excellence his true happiness must be found : 
and if sorrow conduce to spiritual excellence, in sor- 
row itself there will be a blessing. But we must 
guard against misconception. An important dis-, 
tinction is sometimes overlooked. Only such sor- 



THE BLESSING OF SORROW. 



215 



row purifies and blesses, as comes to us in the pur- 
suit of high and noble ends, when it is the condition 
and attendant of moral development — not such as 
results from mere animal want and suffering. For 
this — when it is not accidental and transient — when 
it acts permanently on entire classes of men — is 
positively and directly degrading in its effect. The 
Economists are perfectly right, when they contend 
in opposition to the old doctrine of the Church, that 
we cannot raise the moral standard of the depressed 
classes, till we have first improved their social condi- 
tion, and that the artificial maintenance of poverty 
by systematic almsgiving, is a prolific source of crime 
and misery and degradation. 

It is not, therefore, in the stifling hold of a slave- 
ship — in the close and noisome garret where wretched 
needle-women ply early and late their ill-requited 
trade — in the loathsome beggary that swarms about 
a convent-gate — or in the mud-cabins of Irish cot- 
tiers, where swine and children sleep on the same 
bed and eat off the same plate — that we are to look 
for the spiritualising influence of privation and suf- 
fering. In many religious books there has been a 
great waste of unmeaning rhetoric on this topic. 
Man must be exempted from the craving appetites 
of a brute, before he can understand or even expe- 
rience those sorrows of the soul which are the dis- 
tinction and privilege of his higher nature. Not till 
we are freed from the pressing cares of the body — 
when healthful industry is sure of its return, and 
yields enough to content our frugal wants and mode- 



216 CHKISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH ANT) DUTY. 1 

rate desires — in the still and quiet atmosphere which 
then gathers round the life, is that more refined sen- 
sibility superinduced, which feels the deeper and 
grander sorrows of the spirit, and vibrates at the 
touch of outward wrong to the hidden fibres of the 
divine and immortal within. Those anxieties about 
a subsistence and the preservation of social position, 
which affect such extensive classes in periods of ex- 
treme civilisation, depress and relax instead of ele- 
vating and bracing the mind, and consume all the 
elements of a genuine heroism in sordid and cau- 
tious selfishness. The acute agony which at times 
convulsed society to its centre in its earliest strug- 
gles for justice and freedom, inflicted far less injury 
on the soul, than the low chronic malady which is 
silently eating away the vitals of the great cities of 
modern Europe. Want, anxiety, habitual discon- 
tent and hate of fancied oppression, can never raise 
a class and excite it to noble efforts. A new moral 
spirit must first pass over it, and transform the as- 
pects of its physical suffering. It is the sorrow 
which draws sweetness from the affections and is 
hallowed by conscience — the sorrow that mingles its 
sanctifying drop in the cup of virtuous love and 
pure-souled friendship — the sorrow which mortifies 
young ambition and tempers presumptuous enthu- 
siasm — the sorrow which makes us feel our weak- 
ness and inefficiency, when we have put forth earn- 
est efforts to serve the truth and aid human progress 
— this is the sorrow which chastens and exalts the 
spirit, and fills it with a noble seriousness, and binds 



THE BLESSING OF SOKROW. 



217 



it by holier ties to that ideal of perfection and bless- 
edness, which never perishes from the trust and the 
aspiration of the true servants of God. 

The reason of this is obvious. The sorrows which 
touch the heart, with such amount of outward evil 
as calls them into existence, take us out of the world 
of sense and bring us into immediate contact with 
the great spiritual realities which at other seasons 
are obscured even to virtuous men by the superior 
strength of present impressions.* An uninter- 
rupted flow of worldly prosperity, even if amiably 
enjoyed and unstained with vice, weakens and dis- 
solves those higher faculties of the soul which con- 
verse with things eternal and unseen — makes us too 
keenly sensitive to the immediate sources of our 
personal enjoyment and distinction — absorbs the 
ideal into the actual — and at last, perhaps, from 
sheer failure to supply any adequate excitement, lets 
down the soul into a stagnant depth of weariness 
and apathy. Taking men as they are, we should 
say, that the character was then placed in the most 
favourable circumstances for healthful development, 
when freed from all consuming anxiety about the 
means of subsistence, it was at liberty to employ a 
large portion of time and effort on behalf of moral 
and spiritual objects, without being exempted from 
such alternative of success and disappointment, of 
joy and sorrow, in the great pursuit of life, as is 
needed to keep the nobler sensibilities in constant 
exercise, and seems best to qualify the virtuous for 

* Kaftvovaa ipv%n syyvs ejti Oeov. Words traditionally ascribed to 
the Apostle Peter on the authority of Gregory Nazianzen. 



218 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

their specific task. An earnest nature will work ont 
for itself the true discipline of life in every sphere 
whether high or low. !None who heartily devote 
themselves to the cause of truth and right, will es- 
cape the chastening influence of sorrow. Those 
who possess a superfluity of outward good, who are 
rich and honourable and highly accomplished — if 
they own the call of humanity, and take up with 
ardour and single-mindedness any one of the great 
questions which affect the progress of mankind — 
will find their experience sufficiently chequered with 
good and evil, and the pain and vexation of their 
conflict with the prejudice and the pride and the 
selfishness of the world, sufficiently strong — to open 
the deepest fountains of religious sensibility within 
them, and overflow their hearts with the blessing of 
a sacred sorrow. 

Faith and conscience and love, robbed of their 
fitting objects within this invisible sphere, bring 
strength and comfort from a higher source to the 
exhausted soul, and fill it with a trust not of earth. 
It is this trust which sanctifies the sorrow and con- 
verts it into blessing. — When brave men have strug- 
gled for right and freedom, and sunk at last over- 
powered by a combination of the wicked — exiled 
and homeless, their characters traduced by the lying 
and the base, the cause for which they had perilled 
life and fame, ruined apparently for ever — is their 
peace all gone ? Is no still small voice of blessing 
to be heard, amidst the mighty wail which is raised 
when they fall ? Men of sorrow and acquainted 
with grief, is their nature crushed, or does it rise 



THE BLESSING OF SORROW. 219 

and aspire with the noble consciousness of a just 
cause that still burns with undiminished strength in 
their breasts? Does nothing remain for the true- 
hearted patriot, which the world's calumnies and 
persecutions cannot take from him ? Yes, one bless- 
ing with which no earthly good can compare — un- 
shaken faith in the God of righteousness and truth 
— high trust in that eternal justice which must pre- 
vail, though cast down for the moment, because it is 
sustained by the arm of the Omnipotent. Looking 
back in prison or in banishment, and even amidst 
the anxieties of flight, on the dark field where the 
star of their fortunes set in blood — happy, thrice 
happy, are such men, when the memory of their 
heroic efforts, and overwhelming losses, their long 
torture of suspense and final agony of hopeless de- 
feat, keeps up in full activity that ardent love of 
their country and their kind, and that pure spirit 
of self-devotion to right and truth, which prompted 
their sacrifices and makes their sufferings light, and 
leaves them still, in the very depth of worldly des- 
titution, the holiest consolation. That glorious re- 
membrance blending with the thought of G-od and 
the irreversible destinies of his human family, swells 
into a tide of generous and lofty emotion, which 
sweeps away the petty solicitudes of personal ambi- 
tion and the galling sense of personal wrongs, and 
dissolves them in nobler aspirations and wider sym- 
pathies. They feel themselves servants — weak and 
ineffectual, but honest and faithful, servants — of 
Him who hath sworn by himself, that the cause of 
humanity shall ultimately vanquish its enemies, and 



220 CHRISTIAN" ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

triumph in the earth. As the Lord liveth, they are 
sure, that retribution will come, with slow and silent, 
but unerring, step — to re-establish justice on a firmer 
basis and bestow a larger freedom on mankind. 
The martyrs' hope consoles them, that, the memory 
of their sufferings and the example of their heroism 
may descend with kindling energy on the best 
minds of other times, and scatter the materials of 
an enthusiasm in whose resistless conflagration the 
works of the tyrant and oppressor will be finally 
consumed. Misfortune cannot deprive them of 
the conviction, that they have co-operated, to the 
measure of their strength, with the purposes of the 
Almighty. And His purposes who shall frustrate ? 
They draw nigh to Him in that elevating trust ; and 
the sorrow that overshadows their hearts, sheds on 
them a silent blessing, which they would not ex- 
change for the insolent joy that mingles in the tri- 
umph of unrighteous victory. If sighs escape their 
lips and tears suffuse their eyes — it is from no selfish 
grief — no fear for themselves — no want of faith in 
the Providence of the All-just : but it is from sym- 
pathy with fallen and suffering man— from the 
thought of the oppression and cruelty which still 
scourge the earth, of blooming fields laid waste, and 
towns reduced to ashes, and homes silent and deso- 
late — of husbands, brothers, friends torn from the 
tender and helpless ones that clung to them for pro- 
tection — of brave and virtuous men hurried prema- 
turely from life by the hand of the executioner ; — it 
is from remembrance of the load of guilt and 
wrong that must be heaved from the earth, ere free- 



THE BLESSING OF SOEEOW. 



221 



dom and industry can once more resume their 
peaceful sway. The affections break over the dark- 
ened soul at that sad prospect, in a flood of sacred 
sorrow, which relieves its oppression and opens a 
way for the returning influences of a holier faith 
and love. 

There are sorrows that affect a more private 
sphere of action : and these too have their appro- 
priate compensations. Some in every age have been 
found, willing for a good conscience and the love of 
truth, to renounce the path that led up the steep as- 
cent of worldly honour, and to end their days in 
contented obscurity at its foot. We read of such 
things, and we give them our cold approval. Do we 
adequately conceive the severity of the sacrifice 
which they involve ? — Here is a man of genius and 
sensibility, with a heart open to all gentle and ten- 
der affections, endowed with the tastes and accom- 
plishments at once to enjoy and to enhance the de- 
lights of cultivated and refined society. Behold 
him, then, on the threshold of life — in those years 
when ambition is strong, and hope throws her 
brightest tints on the gleaming haze of the future — 
the world's prizes glittering in his eye — and con- 
scious of powers that would certainly make them his 
own — forbidden by the voice within to engage in 
the dishonest race, commanded on pain of self-con- 
tempt, to stand aside and see others confessedly his 
inferiors rush past him to wealth and honours and 
the softer blessings of an easy and elegant home — 
with few to comprehend, and fewer still to approve, 
his choice. Is this a slight trial of faith and princi- 



222 CHEISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

pie 1 Is it nothing, to see the field closed against 
him, for which alone he had been trained, and feels 
himself fit ? Nothing, to be cast on the uncertain- 
ties of the outer world ; — nothing, to renounce per 
haps all the hopes which gave to life its dearest 
charm ; — nothing, to be thrown amongst men with 
whom he has no sympathy, and to be confounded 
with some whose spirit is distasteful and whose prin- 
ciples are abhorred — the refined mixed up in the 
rough competitions of life with the violent and 
coarse, the calmly wise with the wildly visionary, 
the reverential and conservative with the profane 
and the revolutionary ? — Yet such things have been, 
bravely and cheerfully borne by the noblest spirits : 
and though there was sadness upon their soul — 
though they were truly 1 men of sorrows and ac- 
quainted with grief — there was consolation for them 
deep and full, of which the world little dreamed, in 
a heart at peace with itself and in communion with 
God, able to look up to Him with a filial confidence, 
and not afraid to ask his blessing. By a beautiful 
compensation of our nature, the sacrifices which are 
sometimes required to obtain the privilege of speak- 
ing truth and acting uprightly, exalt in the same de- 
gree the enjoyment which springs from every virtu- 
ous exercise of the faculties. Having thrown off by 
one noble effort, all the fetters which restrained the 
free action of the mind, we can now give ourselves 
up to the full delight of following truth wherever it 
leads, and of obeying to its utmost requirements the 
bidding of the sacred voice within. Sacrifice brings 
its reward, by converting simple duty into positive 



THE BLESSING- OF SORROW. 



223 



happiness. We have attained our end in the liberty 
to work freely with Gocl. A religions consecration 
invests the whole life, which keeps the idea of God 
ever present to the thoughts. Simply to do His will, 
we feel now th^ privilege and joy of onr being. 
We have allied ourselves with Him ; and whatever 
henceforth we speak and write and do, no longer ex- 
torted by fear or blindly yielded to authority, but 
issuing from strong conviction and impregnated 
with the spirit of love — will U taken up, we are sure, 
by his Providence, and made strong with a heavenly 
strength, for the overthrow of falsehood and wrong, 
and the gradual preparation of a reign of truth and 
virtue in the world. Conscious sympathy with God, 
conscious sympathy with the noblest spirits of the 
ages, joined to the hope of being associated with 
them hereafter in some more glorious state of being 
— exalt the happiness of all virtuous efforts, what- 
ever pain and sacrifice they cost, and however void 
of honour in the world — and fill the depths of the 
soul with a sweet intensity of joy, unknown and in- 
conceivable by those whose intellectual labours are 
disjoined from high spiritual feeling. Old loves, 
old regrets, disappointments, crosses and mortifica- 
tions — memories that would darken the retrospect of 
other men — are here softened into beauty by the re- 
ligious light that is cast over them from the now ac- 
quiescent and trustful spirit, and retain only enough 
of sadness to infuse a rarer flavour into the emotion 
they inspire, and make the sorrow that springs up 
in the bosom of integrity, a rich cordial to the soul. 
Yes, there is a sorrow which chastens and ele- 



224 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

vates the heart and betrays itself in manly serious- 
ness of voice and look — when the grand realities of 
life press heavily on the thoughts — when the world's 
false lights disappear, and it lies before us plain and 
naked as it is, its infinite littleness absorbed in the 
awful bosom of eternity — when things invisible re- 
veal themselves to the inward eye, and in the solemn 
aspect of existence which they disclose, we feel it a 
far happier lot to toil and suffer with the wise and 
virtuous few who have made truth and conscience 
their choice, than swim down the stream of worldly 
prosperity, with the vain and thoughtless crowd 
whose faith and worship are fixed on perishable 
shows ; — a sorrow, grave and earnest and compas- 
sionate — in gentle unison with all that is beautiful 
and glorious in nature, with all that is true-hearted 
and noble in humanity, with all that is consoling and 
sublime in the aspirations of Religion : yes, this is 
a sorrow, which brings in its visitations the select- 
est influences of a better world, and leaves behind it 
a power of heavenly wisdom on the soul. In the 
shade of this divine sadness, the true prophets of 
humanity — 'men of sorrows and acquainted with 
grief — have ever dwelt — all who have had thoughts 
above the world, and yet have loved it with a pure 
and holy love — all who have striven to reform its 
wickedness, and abate its suffering, and animate it 
with juster principles and higher aims. But the 
sadness was dear to their hearts : they found in it a 
sacred peace. 

If we descend into the bosom of the humblest 
homes, in the lights and shades which chequer the 



THE BLESSING- OF SOBEOW. 



225 



ordinary flow of human life, we find ample scope 
for that holiest discipline of the heart which is ad- 
ministered by sorrow. Wherever sorrow comes, in 
the way of duty, or by the appointment of Provi- 
dence for the trial of the believing and virtuous, it 
brings with it a blessing peculiarly its own. It is 
the special privilege of Religion, amidst the changes 
which affect our condition and interrupt our rela- 
tions, that it permits us to look up to a Parent Mind, 
and refer ourselves to His disposal, and feel sure 
that He designs our good. The comfort that flows 
from such a belief, rich in proportion to our own 
need of it — is a proof from experience, weightier far 
than all the demonstrations of the theologian, that 
there is a Father in heaven, who dwells in our hu- 
man affections and gives them their sweetness, and 
is ever present with the balm of his Spirit to heal 
their wounds. How does sorrow in all its forms, bring 
home this truth to the heart ! A crippled and suf- 
fering child, looked at from without, seems the hea- 
viest of domestic afflictions. Yet once confided to 
our care, what an object of tender interest it be- 
comes ! What gentle and holy affections hover 
over it ! What a web of soft and fostering duty is 
woven round it ! It gives new beauty and value to 
life. We would fain keep it with us for ever. 
What a void is left, when it is removed by the hand 
of death ! The heart then learns the deep blessing 
of sorrow, ill exchanged for the drier interests and 
the tasteless pleasures, that must now come in its 
place. 

There are sorrows inseparable from our choicest 
11 



226 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

blessings. In the anxieties attendant on the settle- 
ment of children in the world — in the success of one, 
in the failure of another, in parting with a third to 
distant lands — there is a fuller and more earnest 
play of the affections, a wider opening of the heart 
to the best influences, a more healthful excitement 
of deep moral feeling involving elements of incom- 
municable blessedness — than can ever be expe- 
rienced in the easy and comfortable existence of 
self-indulgent celibacy, or even by those whose com- 
mand of worldly patronage enables them to place 
their children at once in situations of honour and in- 
dependence. Freedom from care is not identical 
with happiness. Apathy is the chilling blight of 
all true life. There can be no genuine happiness 
without the presence of moral and religious feeling ; 
and this is impossible, where smooth success and 
luxurious ease lull all deep emotion into quietude. 
"Who does not know, how affection is called forth by 
misfortune and sickness, and how it will put forth a 
strength and richness of blessing little suspected till 
it was wanted. "When our friends are thrown on 
our help, and can make us no return but a requital 
of their love, there is a generous delight in serving 
them. We are almost thankful for the mischance 
which tests the purity of our attachment, and en- 
ables us to show it without a suspicion of selfishness. 
How doubly precious a life that is dear to us, becomes, 
when it no longer moves about free and independ- 
ent in the midst of our social circle, but is confined 
to one spot, and can only be preserved from day to 
day by the constancy of our attentions and the 



THE BLESSING OF SORROW. 



227 



thoiightfulness of our love ! It rests now as a sacred 
charge on us. We hold it as a pledge from the Al- 
mighty Giver, for the fidelity of our service. The 
affections gather with a concentrated tenderness on 
the single point of duty and sympathy, where active 
kindness belongs for the time to one side only of the 
relation, and no token of reciprocation can be given 
on the other, but the faint bowing of the head which 
expresses a mute thankfulness, and the tender love 
which still gleams momentarily from the languid 
eye. 

It is 'in the solemn hour of final separation, that 
the affections assume their holiest aspect, and the 
sorrow that has done with time, finds a peace that 
comes from the eternal rest. Those who have ex- 
perienced this last visitation of earthly sorrow, and 
seen the mortal breath pass from the pale lips of 
parent, child or friend — know well, that at such an 
hour, whatever faith is latent in the heart, comes 
forth in all its strength, and rises up to the demand 
of our wants, and enables us to say in the depth of 
heavenly trust, Father, thy will be done. Never 
are the beloved so dear, never so inseparable from 
our inmost spirit, never can we so little conceive 
the possibility of their perishing from us for ever — 
as in the moment when death throws his dark veil 
between us and them, and faith glows into inten- 
sity under the breath of affection. Never as then is 
this life so completely a nothing, and death a tran- 
sient passage, and heaven the one only reality. 

Christianity in the highest sense is the Religion 
of Sorrow. It baptizes the heart with a holy sad^ 



228 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

ness, and prepares it for the descent of the Spirit of 
God. Christ leads us on to perfection as c a man of 
sorrows and acquainted with grief.' Gethsemane 
and Calvary are the scenes where he teaches us most 
effectually the necessity of life's struggles and the 
secret of its consolations. All that concerns the 
interests of the present life, we can learn for our- 
selves, and from those with whom we daily live. 
Science and human experience suffice for this. What 
we need is the higher discipline that will convert 
pain and toil, and grief and disappointment, and 
death into blessings for the soul — blessings of un- 
earthly sweetness and a virtue which nothing can 
touch, subsisting through every change into the 
eternal life. This discipline we learn from him who 
has consecrated sorrow and made death beautiful. 
The suffering Christ is the best supporter of the 
heart that is bowed with grief. He passed through 
all the crises of our humanity, even our doubts and 
our fears, and fathomed the darkest depths of our 
sorrow. But the fear was momentary; the doubt 
only rose to pass away. Fear and doubt were alike 
dissolved in the warmth of that human love, which 
prayed for enemies, and comforted the penitent, and 
consigned the weeping mother to the tried affection 
of the friend : — fear and doubt passed away in the 
clear visions of that heavenly trust which spake forth 
triumphant in the words — c Father, into thy hands I 
commend my spirit.' 



XIV. 



MORE JUSTICE AND LESS CHARITY. 

Matthew, vii. 12. 
" All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do 
ye even so to them : for this is the Law and the Prophets." 

This is one of those grand, universal command- 
ments, written by God's finger on the conscience of 
all men — of which it is the singular distinction, to 
be everywhere admitted and every where disobeyed. 
It is so obviously essential to the order and harmony 
of the world, that no sophistry is shameless enough 
to dispute it. Its fulfilment is hindered by so many 
weaknesses and thwarted by so many impulses which 
the best cannot wholly overcome, that every one 
must feel on reviewing any considerable portion ot 
his existence, how constantly he has violated it. It 
is a protest against selfishness : and selfishness, cleav- 
ing as it does to the inmost core of our being, is the 
besetting sin of the world. It is, further, one ot 
those commandments, the keeping of which to the 
outward letter, without reference to the inward and 
governing spirit, would often be productive of the 
greatest mischief. To treat others properly, we are 
told to put ourselves in their situation, and to ima- 
gine how in that case we should wish them to act 



230 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

towards us. But to obtain a right judgment, some- 
thing more than a mere change of places is required. 
We must take with us into the new circumstances, a 
correct estimate of the mutual obligations of man- 
kind. Undue susceptibility and the preponderance 
of mere feeling over though tfulness may equally 
mislead us, whether we look at the case from ano- 
ther's point of view or from our own. The question 
is, not what we might actually wish with our present 
views, but what with juster views we ought to wish. 
It is not enough simply to conceive ourselves in the 
position of others ; we have also to consider how, 
when there, it would be our duty to feel and act to- 
wards them, if removed to ours. 

A certain degree of moral culture, therefore, 
must be pre-supposed, apprehending the general 
spirit of the precept — to enable us to use it as a clear 
and certain rule in our intercourse with mankind. 
Like most of Christ's precepts, it is designed for 
strength of impression and readiness of application. 
It is thrown off with an unqualified breadth and 
generality of statement, and left to find its practical 
limits in the subsequent reflection and experience of 
the recipient mind. It is a popular, not a scientific, 
enunciation of a great general truth. Nevertheless 
it seizes with the sort of intuitive tact and subtle 
depth of penetration, which we ever remark in the 
oracles of a true prophet — precisely that element of 
selfishness in the mind, which deadens its clear per- 
ception of the full claims of social duty. Our daily 
sins against the Christian law of equity and love, 
have their source in an habitual want of sympathy 



MORE JUSTICE AND LESS CHARITY-. 



231 



with others. We think too much of ourselves. We look 
at all things too exclusively from our own point of view, 
and clothe them in the light of our personal interests 
and affections. To place ourselves where others are, if 
it does not at once disclose to us the true measure 
and whole extent of our obligations, at least removes 
the chief obstacle to our discernment of them. If 
you can but dissolve the blinding mists of selfish- 
ness, and let the warm, genial influences of a kindly 
heart have free access to the world without, and re- 
veal its many claims upon us in the broad sunshine 
of human sympathy, — reason will easily supply the 
needful cautions and limitations. Its vision, now 
unobstructed and free, will perceive without difficulty, 
what the true interest of others demands, and what 
we ourselves with the same enlightenment in their 
situation would wish them to do to us. Reason 
must guide the impulses of the heart : but reason 
would never act at all, and have no materials with 
which to deal — unless impulses first came to it from 
the heart ; and it is these impulses which are cher- 
ished and administered by Eeligion. The precept 
in the text does not meet all the requirements of the 
ethical philosopher ; but it enjoins the preservation 
of that preliminary state of moral feeling — that 
breadth "and openness and promptitude of human 
sympathy — which is the condition of a clear appre- 
hension of all the demands of justice between man 
and man. On the consistent maintenance of this 
justice, far more than on the misplaced charity 
which is too often made its substitute, I shall now 
endeavour to show, that the tranquil progress of so- 



232 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

ciety and the true interest of ever y class mainly de- 
pend. 

What we ought to desire as the supreme good 
for ourselves, we ought also, in the spirit of this 
Christian precept, to desire for all our fellow-men — - 
and that is, the highest development of moral char- 
acter — the true life of God — proportionate to the 
gift which each individual has received, and the 
opportunities with which he is surrounded. This is 
the sole condition of a genuine worth and blessed- 
ness. Only in living thus, does man attain the end 
for which he was created, and fulfil the destined 
perfection of his being. Now, this highest good — 
apart from which all others are valueless — cannot be 
put into a man ; it must come out of him. If yon 
attempt to give, what can only proceed from within 
— you may weaken, or even extinguish, the only pos- 
sible means of its development. The good which 
makes man in himself, brave, noble, wise, blessed 
and free — must be evolved from personal effort — 
must be won in the resolute mastery of evil and 
difficulty, in the laborious pursuit and manly 
achievement of excellence — must be the fruit of 
earnest self-culture and self-development. A true 
man can only be produced under such conditions. 
Any influence, under however friendly an aspect it 
may be offered, which enfeebles the stimulus to ex- 
ertion and abridges the power of self-dependence, 
perils his dearest interests, and eats away the living 
root of character. For the fullest display of this 
principle of self-development in the individual, jus- 
tice is the grand pre-requisite of social intercourse. 



MOKE JUSTICE AND LESS CHARITY. 233 

It makes every man secure within his own sphere 
of action ; protects him against intrusion from with- 
out ; and leaves him free and undisturbed to work 
out his own conception of duty, and follow his 
proper business of self-culture. It teaches him to 
know his own limits, and respect those of his neigh- 
bour. 

In working out, then, my own emancipation 
from difficulty, whether of mind or of circumstances 
— in striving after the attainment of social respec- 
tability and independence, and increased opportu- 
nities of intellectual cultivation — in one word, after 
all those outward means which I perceive are the 
conditions of the highest moral and spiritual good 
— I must be careful not to exceed the boundaries 
with which Providence has marked off the portion 
of this world's surface assigned to me ; I must be 
satisfied with the power and resources contained 
within it : and I must not, to increase •my individ- 
ual riches, enter my neighbour's field, and rob him 
of his. This is justice; and what I observe towards 
others, I may reasonably expect them to observe 
towards me. On the other hand, when I s^e exten- 
sive classes of men surrounded with difficulty, and 
sternly grappling with toil — my first feeling, excited 
by contrast with situations apparently more favour- 
ed, and prompted by a natural tenderness of heart, 
would probably be this : ' Were I in the situation 
of these men, how I should thank any compassion- 
ate friend, who would step in and deliver me from 
this incessant toil, and give me a little rest and ease ! 
11* 



234 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

What I in their circumstances should wish for my- 
self, ought not I to endeavour to procure for them V 
Such is often the spontaneous suggestion of unre- 
flecting benevolence; and under such feelings, it 
has not unfrequently proceeded to act. But if we 
watch the process to the end, we observe that integ- 
rity and perseverance usually triumph at last over 
all their obstacles, and carry away a glorious result 
of manly hardihood and sturdy self-reliance. A 
graver question, therefore, remains behind the hasty 
impulse of natural kind-heartedness. Can it be right 
to relieve the physical wants of men, at the expense 
of weakening their moral energies and their sense of 
self-respect ? Is it the higher or the lower part of 
my own nature, which thus sympathises with dimin- 
ished exertion and responsibility, and would so far 
extinguish the noblest functions of humanity, and 
take away the condition of its truest worth ? Dis- 
tinctly realising to myself the known consequences 
of such treatment, and seeing how it tends to de- 
grade and pauperise the minds subjected to it — can 
I honestly say, that, with situations reversed, I 
should desire others to act towards me, as I under 
the influence of a weak sentimentality, am disposed 
to act towards them ? — I am not arguing against the 
occasional and thoughtful exercise of direct benefi- 
cence, still less, contending for the infliction of gra- 
tuitous hardship. I would merely lay down the 
broad principle — that to do as we would be done 
by, becomes then only a safe rule of social inter- 
course, and puts truly in practice the great idea of 
human brotherhood, when we do not surrender our- 



MOKE JUSTICE AND LESS CHARITY. 



235 



selves to the impulses of undisciplined feelings, but 
keep the value of an immortal soul and the end of 
human life distinctly in view. There is no more 
flagrant violation of the spirit of this divine precept, 
than to permit, much more to encourage, the exist- 
ence of a class, lost to all feeling of self-respect, 
dead to every motive of self-maintenance, and de- 
pendent for its subsistence from day to day, on the 
voluntary or compulsory . alms of other classes. 

It is not without an ominous significance, that 
what is called Socialism, makes its appearance 
amongst the great movements of the present age. 
All who look into the future with any power of 
moral divination, must perceive, that vast social 
questions — questions that go to the very heart of 
social organisation, and may involve an extensive 
re-adjustment of the relations of classes — must soon- 
er or later mix themselves with the political and 
ecclesiastical controversies which once exclusively 
agitated the public mind, and give new prominence 
to the feelings and interests of myriads who are be- 
ginning to unite with the undiminished toil and 
hardship of former centuries, the intelligence which 
is peculiar to this. It can hardly be questioned, 
that we are as yet only in the rudiments of the 
great science of Society. That there is widespread 
error somewhere — in our principles or in our appli- 
cation of them — in the ruling maxims of govern- 
ments or in the relations of social intercourse — is 
evident from the half-smothered restlessness and dis- 
content which are ready at this moment to burst out 
into a name over one half of Europe. The organic 



236 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

law seems yet hidden from us, that would re-con- 
struct the social chaos, and bind together its war- 
ring elements in order and harmony. On this vital 
point inquiries in every direction must henceforth 
converge. Here must centre for mutual enlarge- 
ment and correction, the lessons of history, the de- 
ductions of theory, and the results of experience, 
It is easy to point to what is evil and threatening. 
Who will propose a comprehensive remedy, that 
meets the manifold difficulties of this complicated 
case? Perhaps, in the first instance, we look too 
far and too wide. We neglect the faithful applica- 
tion of simple principles. We overlook the wisdom 
that is shut up in every man's own conscience. 
This is certain ; nothing can he done without a re- 
currence before every thing else to strict justice in 
all the departments of human intercourse. 

Hitherto, it has been the usual effect of civili- 
sation, to accumulate enormous masses of private 
wealth by the side of dark depths of abject poverty , 
and to bring the extreme grades of society into the 
unhappy relationship of a class which enjoys with- 
out exertion every thing which art and industry can 
bestow, and a class which has nothing but the mis- 
erable dole which it accepts from charity. Mis- 
taken views of Religion consecrate this relationship,, 
and would fain perpetuate it. They teach men to 
look on it as the normal and permanent condition of 
society. They foster the absurd and very presump- 
tuous notion^ that the dependent and necessitous 
ought alwaj^s fo exist, if only to afford an object for 
the sentimentalities and alms of the rich. There is 



MORE JUSTICE AND LESS CHARITY. 



237 



an unchristian pride in the very assumption which 
such views imply. Put forth in the name, they are 
at war with the spirit, of the Gospel. To give 
largely, where the means are large, and where no 
personal sacrifice is incurred, may not rise above 
the questionable merit of non-resistance to the strong 
impulse of a compassionate instinct : and where bene- 
ficence assumes the form of lordly almsgiving or pro- 
fuse hospitality, it may be so deeply blended with a 
consciousness of superiority and the inward flattery 
of self-applause, that possibly in no other circum- 
stances are the humanities of life less felt and the 
spirit of Christian brotherhood more completely ex- 
' tinct. I am far from underrating the genuine mu- 
nificence which flows from a large and noble heart, 
which aims at morally elevating the objects of its 
sympathy, and measures all its outgoings by a 
thoughtful reference to that end. And yet, per- 
haps, the purest love of man may be shown, where 
there is absolutely nothing to give. To embrace the 
world into whose lap we have been thrown, loving- 
ly — to take our part earnestly and hopefully in its 
joint labours and generous emulations, without envy 
and without contempt, without greedy encroach- 
ment or selfish repining— heartily rejoicing to pro- 
mote all that is good — knowing our proper vocation, 
content with our appointed place, and cultivating 
faithfully the talent, whatever it be, that God has en- 
trusted to us--this is a severer test and a surer wit- 
ness of the true Christian spirit, than the unreflect- 
ing dispersion of treasures whose loss is not felt and 
can be easily replaced. This calls out more strong- 



238 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

ly the healthful consciousness, that we are all men, 
and born for our specific task — bound together 
as fellow-workers by a common tie of human broth- 
erhood. This is that true justice which is identical 
with the spirit of an enlarged charity. This is, in 
the highest sense, doing as we would be done by. 
It is what our Lord called it — the Law and the 
Prophets — the sum and substance of practical Ee- 
ligion. 

The world unfortunately has chosen to pursue an 
opposite course. The spirit of injustice is abroad — 
at work in our laws, our institutions, our manners, 
and our opinions. We first sin by wholesale against 
each other's rights ; and when crime, poverty, 
wretchedness and discontent are the result, a bust- 
ling, ostentatious charity steps in to resist it and set 
matters right. Nor is the injustice less certain or 
less pernicious, because thousands perpetrate it un- 
consciously, walking without thought in the evil 
courses traced out for them by their fathers. Our 
many iniquities in small things scatter broadcast 
the seeds of innumerable evils. Our selfish indo- 
lence and indifference allow enormous abuses to 
grow to a head, and immense classes to lapse into a 
heathenish barbarism : — and then we try to stem 
the rushing torrent by expedients which reach not 
its source, and which if they do not increase its vio- 
lence, only turn it into a new direction and spread 
it over a wider surface. The word must be spoken : 
we want more justice, and less charity. In proof of 
our national benevolence, we point exultingly to our 
endless eleemosynary institutions, and we say — ' Be- 



MORE JUSTICE AND LESS CHARITY. 



239 



hold the monuments of our charity ! What sorrow 
of humanity is left unredressed in this Christian 
land V But that such things should be necessary at 
all, and still more that there should be increasing 
demand for them — is in reality less an honour to 
our Christianity, than a reflection upon it ; for they 
prove, that there exists somewhere a gross violation 
or neglect of social duty. What we need, is the 
development of a higher philanthropy that is supe- 
rior to mere passive impression, and aims with wise 
and energetic forethought at putting all men in a 
condition, and furnishing them with a stimulus, to 
raise and improve themselves — to become self-sus- 
taining and self-dependent. At present, the indi- 
vidual is often crushed by circumstances. He 
cannot rise, if he would. There is the force of hos- 
tile masses acting against him, which his single 
energy cannot overcome. We must endeavour to 
heave the burden off his shoulders, and give expan- 
sion to his latent powers. 

The question will be asked, what can the State 
accomplish — what can private benevolence effect — 
in furtherance of this object ? We have been taught 
to expect too much from laws and government ; and 
what they can give, we often look for through a 
wrong medium — through wide, organic change. 
Let us profit by experience. Where such change 
has been made, to the utmost extent which sanguine 
theorists could desire — what has been the fruit? 
In what respect are the millions easier and happier 
than they were before ? — The well-being of a com- 
munity results from the joint influence of innumer- 



240 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



able causes operating through many generations, 
and can never flow from the simple effect of one 
great change, however necessary or successful. 
Forms of government are historical growths, with 
principles latent in them, no doubt, that must be 
more and more developed in accordance with en- 
lightened theory ; but under any circumstances, 
their value consists less in what they can directly do 
for men, than in what they allow and encourage 
men to do for themselves. They are rather the con- 
ditions, than the causes of social prosperity. Taking 
what exists, therefore, and is in harmony with our 
national character and traditional institutions, as 
a basis of action, let us turn to practical possibilities 
that lie within our reach. Let our first demand be 
the application of the simple rule of Christian jus- 
tice to all affairs of State, producing throughout 
society the profound contentment of a conviction, 
that the interests of every class, however humble 
and obscure, are duly felt and acknowledged, and 
protected with as jealous a care as those of the most 
distinguished and powerful. 

Under this general provision, three objects seem 
alone of sufficient importance to require a special 
mention. — (1.) The elevation of the lowest class and 
the extinction of pauperism must be promoted by 
every stimulus that can be given to industry, and 
by offering facilities for the accumulation and in- 
vestment of property in small masses. It is an 
alarming symptom, when wealth is viewed by mul- 
titudes as an injurious monopoly. Wealth should 
be widely ramified through all classes ; and the feel- 



MORE JUSTICE AND LESS CHARITY. 



241 



ing of envy will then cease. For this purpose, let 
industry be released from its remaining fetters ; that 
in the great equilibrium of demand and supply that 
must ultimately establish itself over the whole earth, 
employment may steadily continue with as much 
uniformity, as it is possible for any institution affect- 
ed by human contingencies to obtain. Let govern- 
ment take away all artificial inducements to the 
confinement of large amounts of property in a few 
hands, and render its conveyance inexpensive and 
secure. Let every opportunity be afforded for the 
conversion of earnings into capital, that the hostile 
interests which now exist, may be gradually ex- 
tinguished, and the two classes of capitalists and 
workmen j^ass off by imperceptible degrees into 
each other. This would only be the introduction of 
an intermediate grade in manufacturing society, 
similar to that which the yeoman once occupied on 
the soil between the labourer and the gentleman.* — 
(2.) Let universal education, by whatever means and 
on whatever conditions the present state of society 
may render its attainment practicable — provide for 

* 'The yeoman' — says Fuller, with characteristic quaintness^-' is 
a gentleman in ore, whom the next age may see refined ; and is the 
wax capable of a gentle impression, when the prince shall stamp it. 
Wise Solon would surely have pronounced the English yeomanry a 
fortunate condition, living in the temperate zone, betwixt greatness 
and want, an estate of people almost peculiar to England. France 
and Italy are like a die, which hath no points between six and ace, 
nobility and peasantry. In England the temple of honour is bolted 
against none who have passed through the temple of virtue; nor is a 
capacity to be genteel denied to our yeoman who thus behaves himself.' 
— The Hohj State, B II. ch. xviii. 



242 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

the mind of every class, what free industry procures 
for the body — the nourishment that is needful to its 
growth — such a free development of the faculties by 
the infusion of wholesome instruction, as will fix the 
principles and settle the character on a moral and 
religious basis. — (3.) Let the principle of self-gov- 
ernment be so distributed through all the elements 
of social organisation, that some individuals of every 
class may have the opportunity of taking part in 
local administration, and so diffuse through the 
body of the people a strong and binding sense of 
common interest. — Such is, perhaps, the utmost that 
the State can accomplish, to aid the free growth and 
independent development of the mass of the popu- 
lation. 

Private influence is less marked and less thought 
of; but it is more penetrating and more diffusive. 
Politics and Political Economy have done much to 
put the old-fashioned notions of morals out of coun- 
tenance. Some theorists are so enlightened as to 
have given up all belief in a conscience. An Eco- 
nomical School is hardly yet extinct, which made 
wealth of such importance, and so completely iden- 
tified with it the whole value and significance of 
human life, that people might well suppose, they 
had done all which could be reasonably demanded 
of them, when they had increased to the utmost the 
amount of annual production. Prejudices like these 
have lowered the moral tone of public opinion. The 
possessor of an improvable nature and an immortal 
soul, has been lost sight of in the calculations which 
reckoned him as an unit of so much political influ- 



MORE JUSTICE AND LESS CHARITY. 24:3 



ence or industrial power. It is consolatory to ob- 
serve, that these narrow views are on the decline. 
It is now seen, that they include only a part of the 
conditions which enter into the great social problem. 
Everywhere men are awakening to a juster sense 
of their claims on each other. The relation of an 
employer to his workpeople, for instance, is admit- 
ted now to involve moral as well as economical 
considerations. It is felt to be a trust of vast influ- 
ence for good or for evil ; and for his use of it, the 
holder is deemed amenable to public opinion and 
responsible to God. It is a relation which honour, 
kindness, humanity, the strictest justice — should 
consecrate and make fruitful of blessing to the two 
parties which it unites. In the hurry and eager- 
ness of selfish competition, we underrate the silent 
influence of moral character. A high example of 
fairness and integrity goes a long way in satisfying 
and tranquillising the popular mind. It inspires 
respect, awakens moral sympathy, and predisposes 
to concessions even where they are seen to draw 
sacrifices after them. On the other hand, meanness, 
trickery, harshness, oppression — rouse the inner 
man into suspicion and hostility — instil the poison- 
ous drops which turn the native sweetness of hu- 
manity into bitter gall, and confound in one deep, 
dark, smouldering passion of indiscriminate hate, 
the just and the unjust of the entire class which 
its own evil members have thus wickedly made 
odious. 

When will men trust more to moral qualities 
than to the magic of gold, for their weight in society 



244 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

and their influence over the classes which they de- 
sire to control ? There 'are some whom the prospect 
of a small additional gain tempts irresistibly to 
push an opportunity to the utmost, yea to the very 
verge of dishonesty, against those whom circum- 
stances have brought under their power. Does it 
never occur to such men to contrast with this pitiful 
advantage, the superior comfort of living in con- 
scious security, — honoured and respected in the 
midst of thousands who trust their word and rely 
on their justice, and look up to them as the dispen- 
sers of an employment which nourishes from its fair 
remuneration a wide community of comfortable and 
contented homes ? — A redundant population reduces 
the value of labour, and enables the employer to 
engage it at wages which barely suffice for the mini- 
mum of subsistence. And if the constant extension 
of trade and a monopoly of the markets of the world 
be thought the only criterion of national prosperity 
— such a condition of the labouring class may seem 
necessary and even advantageous. But if it pours 
in gains on one side, it draws ofT expenditure in 
equal measure on the other. It burdens capital 
with the heavy charge of pauperism, and encircles 
civilisation with anxiety and fear. A population 
exceeding the demands of adequate employment, 
tends from the sheer effect of misery, to perpetuate 
itself with steady increase, and to become continu- 
ally more and more degraded. Smaller profits and 
the slower accumulation of large fortunes — if such 
be the only means of checking so frightful a state 
of things — would be richly compensated in the view 



MORE JUSTICE AND LESS CHARITY. 245 

of every though tful man, by a profound er feeling of 
safety and the sight of more contentment and hap- 
piness. Indeed, no efforts and no sacrifices could 
be too great to relieve society from the load with 
which pauperism oppresses it, and to rouse the 
masses by every stimulus that can be applied to 
them, by every help and encouragement from their 
superiors in worldly position — to a vigorous strug- 
gle for self-deliverance and self-renovation. 

The enlightened and benevolent head of a large 
establishment which furnishes employment to hun- 
dreds, has means and opportunities of moral influ- 
ence at his disposal — the more effectual, because 
they are indirect and grow out of the real business 
of life — which the theoretical philanthropist cannot 
command, and may well envy. Yet there are cases 
where such means are abused, and such opportuni- 
ties are neglected, by men who rush with hypocrit- 
ical inconsistency after remote and fantastic objects 
for the display of their benevolence. "What God 
offers them they reject ; and then run over half the 
world, to make a duty for themselves. They will 
harass, oppress, browbeat, trample down and crush 
some poor and helpless wretch whom fortune has 
thrown at their feet, and whom a small remission of 
their hard-wrung gains might have filled with heart 
and hope to resume once more the steep ascent to 
decency and comfort ; — and then, when conscience 
smites them, roused, it may be, by the stimulating 
fanaticism of the pulpit, they will compound for 
these daily, deep-penetrating sins by some splendid 
contribution to an intolerant association, or profuse 



246 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

demonstration of zeal for philanthropy at the anti- 
podes. These are the fatal courses which foster 
misery and pauperism, and substitute a show of 
charity for the substance of justice. Let thoughtful 
men awake to the full consciousness of their Chris- 
tian duty — not to give more — but by their example, 
their influence, their encouragement, their friendly 
intercourse and wise advice, to put the suffering and 
dependent classes in a condition to demand less. 
Let them strive to lift up the many, who are now 
almost slaves under the imperious domination of 
capital — to the rank of friends and fellow workers, 
independent citizens and Christian brethren. 

For this object no subversion of existing rela- 
tions and no violent fusion of classes is necessary. 
Let society freely unfold itself in its many-sided ful- 
ness, and in the graduated order which results from 
the spontaneous workings of nature ; — law simply 
providing, that one class shall not encroach upon 
and oppress another, that the few shall not rob the 
many, nor the many tyrannise over the few. What 
is wanted is a sense of mutual dependence and the 
feeling of mutual respect between all classes. No 
class would suffer more from the attempt to equalise 
all social distinctions, than the lowest. The motive 
to rise would be taken from themselves, and those 
now above them, would be drawn down to their 
level. The great principle of c doing to others as we 
would they should do to us,' so far from being vio- 
lated, is in its spirit applied and enforced by the pre- 
servation in the upper ranks, of the highest possible 
standard of manners, refinement, mental culture and 



MOKE JUSTICE AND LESS CHARITY. 247 

moral principle. Such an example diffuses a feeling 
which checks barbarism and coarseness in the subor- 
dinate grades of life ; and when every artificial ob- 
stacle is removed, and a general impulse to self- 
development is excited, holds out to superior minds 
in the humblest sphere, a standard of excellence 
after which to aspire. It is the condition of a tho- 
rough elevation of tone throughout society, that all 
should have access to this highest circle, who can 
prove their qualification for it. It should be kept 
select only by the exclusion of rudeness, ignorance 
and profligacy. None should be shut out by the 
impassable barriers of caste ; none pronounced in- 
admissible, in consequence of their religious persua- 
sion. Education should be so widely spread — all 
the avenues to merit should be so freely opened— 
the motives to exertion should be so universally dif- 
fused — that the seed of genius may be quickened 
into life wherever it is hid, and noble spirits rise 
with unobstructed course from the lowliest origin to 
the distant eminence where nature intended them to 
reign. Thus all the elements of good would ascend 
like a genial exhalation and gather round the sum- 
mit of society, at once clothing it with radiant glory, 
and dropping freshness and strength on the broad 
expanded slopes below. 



XV. 



SIMPLICITY OF HEART. 

Romans, x. 10. 
" With the heart man beiieveth unto righteousness." 

These words express the fundamental idea of 
Christianity — that faith is a condition of the affec- 
tions, yielding the fruits of a holy and upright life. 
It is with the heart that man beiieveth ; and the is- 
sue is righteousness and acceptance with God. The 
great distinction of the Gospel, is the inwardness of 
its morality. Whatever men show to the world in 
speech or act, takes its quality in the Christian view 
from the state of mind out of which it proceeds. In 
the science of ethics, as a discipline for the outward 
life, the heathen schools have left us nothing to ac- 
complish. Every speculative question has been an- 
ticipated and exhausted by them. What they wanted, 
was the motive power— the vital link connecting will 
with affection. This is furnished by the religion of 
the prophet of Nazareth. The philosophies of anti- 
quity addressed themselves to the intellect ; the sim- 
ple words of Jesus lay hold of the heart. How un- 
like are the Christians of the first century to the 
many acute and accomplished men who frequented 
the court of the Caesars ! How strikingly different, 



SIMPLICITY OF HEART. 



249 



for example, are the fervour, simplicity and zeal of 
the chosen and separated few who listened to the 
teachings of Paul or John, and all whose virtues 
were the spontaneous outgoing of a trustful and 
loving heart, from the cold and artificial but exqui- 
sitely polished intellect of Seneca ! We may be un- 
just to both parties, if we estimate them from the 
wrong point of view. In clearness of ideas, in pre- 
cision of language, in all that results from scientific 
culture of mind, the heathens have immeasurably 
the advantage. But for access to the deepest sources 
of human feeling — for vivid apprehension of spir- 
itual realities— for intimacy with the most hidden 
operations of conscience — for a quick, intuitive sense 
of the invisible workings of God — we recognise a 
power and an insight in the early Christians, which 
fill the mind with wonder approaching to awe, and 
stand out in marked and significant contrast with the 
limitation of their knowledge, the unskilfulness of 
their reasoning, and their uncritical and infantine 
credulity. Tried by a purely intellectual standard, 
the first professors of our faith would run the risk of 
being- repudiated as ignorant enthusiasts. Brought 
to che inner test of moral and religious feeling, the 
hollow rhetoric of the courtly sophist repels all cor- 
dial sympathy. The sentence in each case depends 
on the temper of the judge. Gibbon would doubt- 
less hold up Seneca in advantageous comparison with 
Poly carp or Clement. George Fox and Bunyan 
would as surely turn away unsatisfied from the 
pointed antithesis and elaborate ingenuity of the 
preceptor of Nero, to seek a more congenial nutri- 
12 



250 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

ment in the deep truth and earnest faith and strong- 
affection which still glow with a vital heat in every 
relic of the apostolic age. 

Christianity has reversed the judgments of man- 
kind respecting the order and subordination of the 
constituent elements of our nature — placing first and 
foremost the conscience and affections as subjected 
to the sovereign law of duty, and ranking under 
them the knowing and reasoning faculties as de- 
signed for the search after truth. Moral light must 
be intermingled with intellectual light, to conduct 
us safely through our mortal course. For ' if the 
light that is in thee, be darkness' — as infallibly it 
must, where moral considerations are absent — ' how 
great is that darkness !' But the due relation of 
these two powers — the moral and the intellectual — it 
is not always so easy to -preserve. The doctrine af- 
firmed in the text, is often misunderstood. Churches 
still exist, where feeling is allowed to overpower 
reason, and on pretence of religioub grounds all in- 
tellectual freedom and activity are forbidden. When 
reaction comes with the rise of a spirit of inquiry, 
men are thrown into the opposite extreme, and 
begin to exalt reason above feeling. They be- 
come hard, captious and self-opinionated. It is all 
at once the fashion to affect independence and origi- 
nality of mind. Nothing is now heard of but the 
rights of intellect. Hence the growth of a popular 
cant, rapidly propagated from mouth to mouth. For 
cant is the adoption of some notion at second-hand 
and the bustling promulgation of it, without any cor- 
responding depth and steadiness of conviction. It 



SIMPLICITY OF HEART. 



251 



is forgotten, that the number of those who can really 
strike out new and original ideas, ever has been, and 
ever mnst be, exceedingly small. 

Tendencies of this description pervade at the 
present time to a large extent, the younger portion 
of society. There is amongst them a great distrust 
of old dogmas ; a weariness of all established usage ; 
a feverish thirst for novelty as such ; and with the 
growth of an earnest spirit, conscious of many and 
great evils that oppress the world, a precipitate ea- 
gerness, not wholly inexcusable, to catch at every 
specious theory that promises to relieve them. But 
the good that exists in such tendencies, readily turns 
into evil. Complaint and scepticism, mixed with 
some presumption, infect the public sentiment. — - 
Original intellects waste their strength in profuse 
wailing and unmeasured contempt. Inferior minds 
take up the strain, and scorn to use the old phrases 
and believe the old truths. They strangely set up 
for originals, by slavishly squaring their modes of 
thought and their very forms of speech to the pat- 
tern prescribed for them by some idolized authority. 
They assume a mission from heaven to regenerate 
the old world, and prove their fitness for it by de- 
spising everybody and abusing everything. On all 
who do not embrace their views and swear by their 
oracle, they look down with ineffable disdain, as very 
ordinary and ignorant people, scarce worthy of no- 
tice and not deserving a refutation. It is their folly 
to affect originality at any cost. Nothing more 
deeply offends them, than the imputation of the 
common-place. Our popular literature has not es- 



252 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

caped the contagion. The simplest truths cannot 
be expressed in a simple way. Good taste is de- 
spised as a sign of mediocrity. Good manners are 
ridiculed as a weak concession to conventionalism. 
Good sense is spurned as incompatible with original 
strength of intellect. Exaggeration, coarseness, false 
and monstrous sentiment, pompous obscurity of 
phrase that hides meanness of conception under an 
air of profundity, and an incessant straining after 
novelty that often destroys at one blow simple truth 
and pure English — are mistaken by numbers for the 
tokens of genius, and hailed as indications of the 
approaching millennium, when all the littleness and 
prejudice of the past shall be thrown aside, and a 
new and more glorious career open before the eman- 
cipated soul. 

True originality of mind cannot be too highly 
estimated, whatever form it may assume ; nor can 
the undoubted prerogative of real genius ever be 
disputed, to soar in its own strength, to use its own 
speech, and to walk in its own ways. For one grain 
of the pure gold of genius, we might Well put up 
with much that is coarse and valueless in the matter 
which holds it. But what we have a right to pro- 
test against, is the assumption of genius where it 
does not exist ; the affectation of originality in very 
ordinary minds ; the repudiation of the common- 
place in characters which only assert their claim to 
it by disregarding common-sense and violating com- 
mon decorum. Even genius has no chartered li- 
cense to wander away from the eternal landmarks 
of morality, and the safe guidings of traditional pro- 



SIMPLICITY OF HEART. 



253 



priety. Much more, then, will the vast residue of 
mankind find their only safety and their genuine 
respectability in cultivating simplicity of heart, in 
adhering to the dictates of a healthy moral senti- 
ment, in fulfilling patiently and earnestly the duties 
that lie next to them, in their allotted sphere of ac- 
tion and sympathy. True wisdom is to ' believe 
with the heart unto righteousness in other words, 
to love and cherish purity and uprightness for their 
own sakes — to believe in them entirely — to speak 
and act in them undoubtedly — and to make the out- 
ward so fully express the inward man, that both 
may be approved to the omniscient eye of God. 
No character formed on such principles, can be 
common-place. It will fill its appointed station; 
wear its proper aspect ; do its fitting work ; and be 
noble and beautiful in its way. Such is the charm 
and the worth of genuine simplicity of character. 
Observe the economy of nature. Every thing is 
beautiful, if left where nature meant it to be. Mark 
the variegated hues that spread with exquisite tran- 
sition from the unbroken surface of the precipitous 
rock across the slope of the brown heath into the 
green bosom of the undulating vale. See how they 
all blend in richest harmony, and yield a soft diffu- 
sive beauty, to which the minutest lichen and the 
tenderest blade of grass and the most delicate flow- 
er, not less than the massive shade of the forest and 
the bright expanse of winding stream, contribute 
their share. Compare this spontaneous loveliness 
with the contorted forms and elaborate patchwork 
of the artificial grotto, where knotted roots and 



254: CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

dried flowers and pebbles and moss are wrought 
into fantastic mosaic ; — and you will perceive how 
studied efforts at originality mar the beauty that 
grows out of the simplicity of nature. Let not man 
then overlook this great lesson of nature. Let him 
be content to be what he is, and where he is, in the 
grand simplicity of the- divine plan : and his char- 
acter will always be beautiful. It will give its due 
share of colour and sweetness to the pervading har-~ 
monies of creation. Nay, if a seed of power be act- 
ually within it, and the order of the Divine influ- 
ences be obediently followed, it may put forth 
higher qualities, and assume a more striking aspect, 
and become, when God demands it, at the fitting 
season, original and great. 

The apostolic doctrine is brought out in the text 
by the peculiar significance and mutual relation of 
three prominent terms — heart, belief, righteousness. 
Righteousness is the state of mind and character 
which makes us acceptable to God. Belief implies 
the principles which form and govern the character. 
Heart expresses the feelings of love- and interest 
with which those principles are adopted and acted 
on. Simplicity and heartiness are the feelings here 
described — simplicity looking to what is purely 
right, heartiness taking it up with earnestness and 
devotion. Let every character cultivate these qua- 
lities. There will then be no fear of the common- 
place ; and society will be rid of affectation and pre- 
tence. "What a charm there is. about the person 
who is content to appear what he really is, and to 
fill his proper place in the world without envy or 



SIMPLICITY OF HEART. 



255 



contempt ! There is a serene truthfulness in his 
whole manner and language, which wins our confi- 
dence and puts us at our ease. Through his trans- 
parent words we can see into the feelings that are 
at work in the bottom of his heart. There is a 
beauty which a pure moral taste will at once dis- 
cern in the adaptation of such a character to its cir- 
cumstances — in the mutual correspondence of its 
relations and its affections — in its quiet harmony 
with the order and arrangements of Providence. 
We perceive at a glance what a grace and even a 
dignity, genuine simplicity of mind and quiet recti- 
tude of purpose confer on characters, that are not 
made conspicuous either by elevated station or bril- 
liancy of endowment. 

Heart and conscience require indeed the support 
and' guidance of the undertaking. But wherever 
the former are fully awakened and exert a predom- 
inant sway, they impose the duty of calling forth 
and cultivating to the utmost the intellectual facul- 
ties as the means and instruments of wisdom. Mo- 
ral and spiritual affections never unfold themselves 
without some corresponding development of intelli- 
gence ; but the intellectual powers may be exer- 
cised, to the neglect and stifling of the moral and 
spiritual. When these are ascendant in the charac- 
ter, they rouse the intellect to healthful action, and 
impel it in the right direction, without letting it 
wander astray in pursuit of mischievous or delusive 
objects. Many a mind is urged by ambition and 
vanity and envy to enterprises beyond its strength, 
which only lead to abortive efforts and terminate in 



256 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

disappointment and misery. "Whereas simplicity of 
heart will reveal to us the one talent (if it be no 
more) that has been confided to our charge, and 
incite us to cultivate it with religious faithfulness. 
"What is inherent in the character and constitutes 
its specific gift, will then be sure to come out and 
do its work, and occupy a place in the economy of 
providence, which no other character perhaps under 
the same circumstances could so beneficially fill. 
It is no groundless assumption, that to every charac- 
ter its fitting position and appropriate function have 
been assigned in the grand arrangements of omnis- 
cient wisdom — subject o£ course to man's upright 
and intelligent exercise of the free agency entrusted 
to him ; for this alone will show him what his true 
vocation is, and enable him to appropriate it. We 
miss the duty that belongs to us, for want of simpli- 
city of mind — from ignorance of ourselves, and a 
restless ambition to be what we are not. 

Seek out, then, the work which God intended 
for thee ; fulfil it earnestly and faithfully ; and thou 
wilt be honoured and blest. To find it, thou must 
not cast an envious eye at the lofty and glittering 
pinnacles of this world's greatness. Look rather 
within. Consult thy own heart. Listen to the voice 
of conscience. Ponder well the ever-recurring sug- 
gestions of thy calm and serious moments. Behold 
where God has placed thee. Examine dispassion- 
ately what he has given to thee without and within. 
Ask thyself what good can be done — what evil 
averted — what knowledge acquired — what truth 
sought after — what happiness diffused — in that little 



SIMPLICITY OF HEART. 



257 



circle which bounds in thy present being. Fill it up 
to its limits, with earnest, faithful duty — with pure 
and reverent love ; and its circumference will gra- . 
dually expand, and a new horizon will widen round 
thee. If God has buried a richer talent within thee, 
and has nobler work for thee here to do, his hand 
will bear thee upward to a higher stage and cause 
thee to move in a larger sphere. Thou wilt be spared 
a fall from the giddy heights of a treacherous ambi- 
tion ; for thy way will be secured beneath thee ; and 
thy power at every step will be equal to thy aspira- 
tion. 

Genius is a rare gift. Its visits to earth are 6 few 
and far between. 5 For the multitude of men, it is 
uuspeakable presumption, to affect its prerogatives 
and claim its privileges. Yet, if there be any asign- 
able process to draw it forth, where it may lie hid- 
den and oppressed — if there be any method to give 
it a deeper and holier influence on the hearts and 
minds of men ; it is the expulsion of the* affectation 
and prejudice which buoy up such numbers with 
chimerical hopes, and lead them astray from real 
duties in the chase of phantoms — it is the infusion 
into society of more reverence and love for simpli- 
city and genuineness of character. It should be the 
first object of education, to form a pure heart, high 
principle, an earnest and ingenuous spirit. If all 
intellectual accomplishments be kept subordinate to 
these great moral ends, and the development of the 
character be allowed to follow the beneficent order 
of nature ; the various tendencies and aptitudes of 
different minds will unfold themselves in their pe- 
12* 



258 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

ciiliar strength, and enrich, with new elements the 
spiritual resources of the world. At present innu- 
merable prejudices obstruct in various ways a com- 
plete extraction of the mental and moral wealth 
latent in society. They can only be dispelled by a 
profounder respect for all honest labour, and a more 
discriminating regard in our social economy to the 
fitness of different minds for different works. Orig- 
inal diversities of spiritual organization have not 
been sufficiently considered in our prevalent modes 
of culture. We have subjected all minds to one 
system, and do not leave free scope for the unfold- 
ing of the simple, earnest, devoted character. The 
principle of the division of labour, to which so much 
of our existing civilization is due, must ultimately 
have some reference to the inherent tastes and capa- 
cities of various minds. But a false estimate of re- 
spectability — the assumption, that only certain kinds 
of employment are genteel and honourable — has nar- 
rowed for thousands their sphere of useful activity 
in the world, and limited in a correspondent degree 
their course of preparatory education. "We can only 
hope, that freedom and progress will rectify these 
mistakes, and by removing the constraint of artifi- 
cial pressure, give full expansion to the diversity of 
nature's gifts. 

It may not indeed be literally true, that every 
mind brings with it into the world a special vocation 
from Providence. Some minds command circum- 
stances ; others are rather moulded by them ; though 
in every case, there is more of reaction between 
mind and circumstance than a superficial view would 



SIMPLICITY OF HEART. 



259 



indicate. Four^r in his theory of social regenera- 
tion, has doubtless carried to an absurd and imprac- 
ticable extent, the notion of adjusting employment 
to aptitude, and of fitting to every outward function 
Ja life its exact counterpart of mental organisation. 
His whole conception of the subject is too necessa- 
rian, and by reducing to a minimum the principle 
of human freedom and self-development, transfers to 
society what should be the work of the individual. 
Still a great and fruitful idea dimly pervades his ec- 
centric speculations ; and it is this obscure mixture 
of truth with error, which lends them a delusive fas- 
cination. The error we are not bound to accept ; 
but truth from whatever quarter we may cordially 
greet. When moral considerations shall take pre- 
cedence of all others in education — when a simple, 
truthful, earnest mind shall be regarded as its wor- 
thiest fruit — the predominance of duty in the view 
of life and a thoughtful comparison of fitnesses with- 
in with claims and opportunities without, will suffi- 
ciently make clear to every one, where duty lies and 
how it must be performed, and effect that vital har- 
mony of the mind with its circumstances, which is 
the condition of the most productive labour, the 
means of evolving the largest amount of intellectual 
force and originality, and the most fertile source of 
happiness. 

Do you suspect within yourself the latent instinct 
of genius ? Break not away from the clearly-de- 
fined path of duty. Be true to the spiritual monitor 
within. Know that wherever true genius lurks, it 
will reveal itself most effectually in harmony with 



260 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

the suggestions of your moral nature — that pride, 
envy, sensuality, hard and cynical unbelief must 
waste its oil and finally quench its flame. Strive to 
be a simple, honest, faithful man : whatever h^(j en 
talent you possess, will then come forth in its gent- 
ineness, and exert all its power. Every success you 
could reasonably desire, will be surely yours ; and 
the bitterest mortification that might else await you, 
you will happily be spared. You may not be dis- 
tinguished, but you will escape disappointment. 
You may lose a temporary notoriety which you 
would not have deserved ; but you will secure that 
inward peace and dignity of spirit, which are the 
just reward of a true and simple heart. 

It is impossible to check considerations which 
take our thoughts beyond the tomb. Perhaps the 
deepest faith utters the fewest words, and is most 
averse to point out in definite form and bright co- 
lours, the possibilities of distant and unknown scenes. 
But there are a few impressions, that force them- 
selves on our spiritual consciousness, and will enter 
into all our speculations on the solemn and awful 
theme. Yiewed in the light of immortality, we 
look on this earthly existence as a discipline of pre- 
paration, and on character acquired here as the con- 
dition of happiness hereafter — character representing 
and expressing the inward man from which all the 
disguises of a worldly respectability and distinction 
will be finally striped away. If then there be one 
form of character which an instinctive feeling teaches 
us to recognise as more qualified than another for the 
great transition of death-— it is the simple, the truth- 



SIMPLICITY OF HEART. 



261 



ful, and the pure. All Christ's assurances and illus- 
trations plainly declare this. It was the unconscious 
innocence of childhood which he held up to his dis- 
ciples, as the fittest type on earth of the blessed in- 
habitants of heaven. The pride, the avarice, the 
ambition, the voluptuousness, that are here cloaked 
under reputable and sanctimonious forms, when they 
are brought up to that last tribunal, will be exposed 
to view before the searching glance of God, and 
their unfitness for the pure atmosphere of the hea- 
venly world, made plain even to themselves. They 
will stand convicted in their own eyes. The soul 
"vill become its own judge and its own executioner. 
Bus. the quiet, simple, genuine virtue that grew con- 
tentedly on its own soil and wore its natural hue on 
earth, wk have no false appearances to cast aside. 
Unveiled in native innocence it will bend humbly 
and confidingly l^fore its Maker, with no incurable 
remorse for the p^t and no overwhelming dread 
about the future. TvuiM had been its security in time ; 
and truth will be its warrant through eternity. Led 
on by a Providential hand, it will take its place and 
enter on its vocation in that world of enduring bless- 
edness, where all the pure in h^art shall for ever be- 
hold their God. 



XVI. 



THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE. 
John, xvii. 15. 

" I pray not that thou shouldest take them out of the world, but 
that thou shouldest keep them from the evil." 

It is a common practice with divines to place 
ligion and the world in direct antagonism. "N* r 1S 
this wholly the effect of perverse exaggeration- The 
faith of the first Christians, excited by tb* direct in- 
fluence of so wonderful a phenomenon & s the life of 
Jesus, was intense and overwhelming? and expressed 
itself in vehement re-action ag^nst the prevailing 
tendencies of an exceedingly corrupted civilisation : 
and Scripture, issuing from the inner depths of their 
religious life, is a glowing transcript of their im- 
pressions. It is not surprising, therefore, that those 
who take the Gospel precepts and examples in their 
literal strictness as immediately applicable to the 
present time, should seem to discover in them a cer- 
tain warrant for asceticism, which is really at vari- 
ance with the spirit of Christ's own life. To men 
who had declared war against the existing state of 
society, and believed that a new heaven and a new 
earth would shortly appear— the present world could 
possess little interest and value but as a scene of con- 



THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE. 



263 



nict and transition. The experience of centuries has 
shown, that their views were unfounded ; but the 
vague use of Scripture language still upholds opin- 
ions in many minds respecting this world and its 
relation to eternity, which are irreconcilable with a 
right understanding of our actual duties and expec- 
tations. A vital truth making heaven a reality to 
our inmost consciousness, is not sufficiently distin- 
guished from the accidental form, in which the cir- 
cumstances of its original enunciation have moulded 
it. Such a distinction it is the more necessary to 
make, because otherwise, amidst the invincible re- 
monstrances of common sense, it will be impossible 
to secure to the invisible world, a just ascendancy 
over our thoughts. When the spring has been 
drawn too tight in one direction, the rebound, we 
know, will be violent and dangerous in the other. 
Periods of gloomy superstition and wild fanaticism 
denying the reasonable claims of the present and the 
actual, have ever been followed by outbursts of un- 
controlled licentiousness, which extinguish the light 
of heaven in the dark fumes of sensuality, and tram- 
ple all that is divine and holy under foot. Men's 
reason tells them, that they are intended for action 
and enjoyment in this present world ; and the fu- 
ture which lies beyond it, becomes doubtful, when 
its attainment is made dependent on the renuncia- 
tion of interests and affections which are a necessary 
growth of the realities immediately encompassing 
us. True wisdom is to put heaven and earth in their 
due relation to each other, and to harmonise their 
claims upon us, by viewing them as successive stages 



264 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

in one great connected scheme of spiritual develop- 
ment. Our Lord's sublime intercession for his fol- 
lowers, transmitted by the most spiritual of the 
Evangelists, conveys to us a right apprehension of 
this matter, and reconciles the various conditions of 
our being : ' I pray not that thou shouldest take them 
out of the world, but that thou shouldest keep them 
from the evil.' 

We of this age, it must be confessed, are in no 
great danger of becoming too deeply spiritual. What 
we have rather to guard against, are the absorbing 
influences of a material civilisation, and the too 
violent resistance of the practical reason to those de- 
mands of an entire renunciation of the world, which 
are still put forth in loose, traditional phrase from 
the pulpit, without any response in the living cre- 
dence and sympathy of the popular heart. Plain, 
strong intellects, unaffected by any great spiritual 
sensibility — such as the most powerful workings of 
the day throw up in great abundance on the surface 
of society — repel with no disguised contempt the 
customary exhortations on this subject, as so much 
idle, professional discourse. Men's actions and 
avowed aims, if not their very words, say distinctly 
enough ; — ' You bid us give up the world, and come 
to the only fountain of true knowledge. Why, the 
knowledge of the world is worth all other know- 
ledge ; it deals with realities, for which you offer us 
but shadows and dreams.' 

There is enough of truth in this representation 
to render doubly seductive the fallacy which it in- 
volves. For there is a fluent declamation about 



THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE. 



265 



things spiritual, which means absolutely nothing; 
and there is a knowledge of the world — in other 
words, of the present facts of our existence — which 
cannot be too highly appreciated. But different 
ideas may be conveyed under the same terms. "What 
is often understood by a knowledge of the world, 
enfeebles instead of invigorating the character, in- 
fuses prejudices of the worst kind, and overclouds 
the mind at last with spiritual darkness. Knowledge 
of this description is in reality only ignorance of the 
highest truth. For man is placed by the constitu- 
tion of his nature, on the limits of the sensuous and 
the spiritual worlds. "Wisdom requires, that he 
should embrace both in his view and discern their 
harmony. But they who are specially designated 
men of the world, like certain spirits described by 
Swedenborg, have their perceptions open on one side 
only of their being. What is beneath them, they 
see ; what they have in common with the animal, 
affects them as reality : but to the vast spiritual uni- 
verse above and around them, filled with light and 
resonant with melody, their eye is closed and their 
ear is stopped. 

Great mischief may result from a perverse mis- 
statement of what Is to be understood by a know- 
ledge of the world. Advice like this has sometimes 
fallen from lips reputed wise : — ' Let a youth see life ; 
let him purge off his appetites and passions in a few 
years of free indulgence, and give the animal the 
rein ; he will come to his senses at last, and know 
better how to deal with men and things, from this 
foregone experience of what they really are.' What 



266 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

is the plain English of this ? A young man will 
gain the truest knowledge of the world, not by keep- 
ing his vision clear and unobstructed, to gain a wide 
view of facts in all their bearings, but by the hazard- 
ous surrender of his moral freedom to the strongest 
forces that can hold it captive, and from which he 
may never afterwards get free. 

Let us examine this advice, which has often passed 
current for wisdom. To simplify the question, we 
will here put out of view, as of minor importance, 
though still not entirely separable from moral con- 
sequences, the probable mischief of such a course to 
health and outward circumstances, which a total 
change of life in subsequent years may never suffice 
to redress. We will confine our attention to moral 
considerations alone. You plunge into vice merely, 
as you affirm, to know what it is — simply, as it 
would seem, from a speculative interest in it — with 
the full intention to renounce it soon and throw aside 
its contaminations. Reflect, then, on the possible 
results of the step which you are about to take. You 
cannot have dealings with the Evil One, and be sure 
of flinging him off whenever you like. When he has 
once seized you, he may overpower you and refuse 
to let you go. You run the risk of contracting habits 
whose bonds you may never more be able to dissolve, 
and of subjecting yourself to propensities which may 
keep you a slave for life — of undergoing an enfee- 
blement of will and a perversion of view, which may 
prevent you from ever rising again to the erectness 
of moral dignity and seeing things in their true light. 
But suppose this danger were out of the way ; sup- 



THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE. 



26T 



pose it were quite certain, you could return to a pure 
and regular life as soon as you wished : your theory 
at the outset is fundamentally wrong ; you are seek- 
ing knowledge by a method which can only perpet- 
uate ignorance. Familiarity with the world's vices 
can never reveal to you the world's great truths, or 
enable you to fathom its deep realities. This asser- 
tion may surprise you, but it is capable of the strict- 
est proof. 

The system of things to which we belong, and 
with which our duties, interests and hopes are bound 
up, is a vast whole, presenting itself under divers 
aspects to the mind. To understand it, we must 
view it on every side and in all its relations. We 
cannot better describe virtue, than as the ordering ot 
our entire life in accordance with the governing law 
of this system — in other words, the co-operation of 
our voluntary agency with God. To reason wisely, 
therefore, and to act virtuously, we must keep life as 
a whole before as ; and for this purpose, we must 
largely rely on recorded experience. The axioms of 
religion and morality, emanating from the deep in- 
tuitions of prophets and sages, and ratified by the 
collective testimony of the human race, exhibit au- 
thoritatively to the conscience of individuals those 
large general results of practical wisdom, which the 
impressions of our daily life, shut up in a narrow 
sphere and darkened by the influence of sense, would 
else hinder us from clearly apprehending. Only as 
we live in the light shed on us by the whole expe- 
rience of the past, and firmly grasp the religious 
wisdom which embraces the world as a whole, can 



268 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

we discern between the truth and falsehood of things 
and distinguish superficial shows from fundamental 
realities. Every mode of life which contracts our 
mental vision and excludes this broader light, though 
it may seem to make us more intimately acquainted 
with a particular order of facts, deadens our percep- 
tion of the higher truths from which all facts receive 
their right interpretation, and which facts of any 
description are only useful as they serve to evolve 
and express. 

If this reasoning be correct — and to me it seems 
unanswerable — it is evident, we must keep our 
minds in the large and open freedom, which cannot 
be disjoined from virtuous habits and a serious con- 
viction of the moral value of life — in order to gain 
any knowledge of the world that really deserves the 
name. There is a right and a wrong solution of the 
great problem of our terrestrial existence. The for- 
mer cannot be associated with the low views and 
grovelling appetencies of a vicious life ; the latter 
at once discovers its insufficiency in the clear and 
serene light which envelopes a virtuous mind. We 
cannot adopt both solutions at the same time; but 
if knowledge be honestly our subject, there is one 
decisive consideration to determine our preference. 
In plunging into darkness, we lose all perception of 
light ; whereas if we dwell in light, we still have a 
distinct apprehension of the form and mass and dis- 
tribution of the shadows which limit and surround 
it. Sin deadens the mind to the discernment of 
what is holy and just : virtue has the very opposite 
effect on the appreciation of moral evil. The mor- 



THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE. 269 

ally free alone perceive and feel what is true and 
beautiful and good, and alone are capable of acting 
with God in the pursuit and expression of them. 
They alone find happiness in continual sympathy 
with the pure and blessed Spirit that is present in 
all things. Yice enslaves a man, and destroys the 
individuality of soul which constitutes character ; it 
dissolves the purely human in the instinctive and 
the animal. 

Such is the effect of all the passions, when re- 
leased from the control of reason and conscience : 
but the lower those passions are, and the less they 
are connected with any of the moral and intellectual 
energies of the soul, the more degrading and perni- 
cious is their influence on the character. Yice 
ranges among the rudimental constituents of our 
being, and soon exhausts them. When it has spent 
its short-lived force, it rapidly gravitates towards 
the limits which define the conditions and restrict 
the capacities of a merely animal existence. Yirtue 
has an unbounded sphere opened to it upwards ; and 
into this it presses with ceaseless aspirations, which 
are ever taking new forms and transferring them- 
selves to higher objects, and must be experienced to 
be understood. When the excitement of novelty is 
once over, vice speedily consumes its materials. Its 
narrow round of enjoyments is soon completed, and 
is retraced again and again with wearisome monoto- 
ny — habit claiming its customary tribute of stimulus, 
while the ebbing tide of sensibility has continually 
less and less to supply. To comprehend vice, it is 



270 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

unnecessary to be familiar with it. Its seeds lie 
within ourselves, and we are conscious of them : its 
fruits are conspicuous to the eye, profusely scattered 
in the world around us. We have only, therefore, 
to watch our own hearts and observe the ways of 
men, to be fully aware, what it is, and what it must 
be. The latent sources of vice are open to the im- 
mediate inspection of conscience, and we have no 
difficulty in tracing them to their remoter conse- 
quences. But such is the nature of vice, the nearer 
you draw to it, the worse you see it ; for the eye is 
oppressed with a mass of details which lose their 
true meaning and character, when insulated from 
the broader relations which we must stand at a 
greater distance to be able to embrace. One thing 
only perhaps the uniniated cannot picture to them- 
selves — and that is, the agony of remorse, when the 
soul first awakens to the degradation of sin, and 
painfully attempts to return to the ways of purity 
and peace. Virtue, on the other hand, is the con- 
sciousness and the manifestation of the immortal and 
progressive element of our being. We must be inti- 
mate with it, to know it. Its quality cannot be in- 
ferred and conjectured beforehand. Its outward re- 
lations and visible aspects convey no adequate idea 
of what it is. Its blessing is all within — in cheerful 
peace and calm contentedness — in the conscious 
health and vigour of the soul — in the presence of 
kindly and generous affections — in that pure 
indwelling light of heaven which brightens and 
burnishes the outward face of things, and brings 



THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE. 



2U 



out its deep significance, and gives back varied and 
multiplied in endless reflections, the beauty that 
glows in the spirit itself. 

A misapprehension of the true knowledge of life 
is fostered, partly by a natural recoil from the monk- 
ish renunciation of its healthful pursuits and enjoy- 
ments, which is sometimes enjoined as the only 
qualification for heaven — and partly by the strong 
interest which none can helj) feeling, in every vivid 
and faithful delineation of the workings of human 
passion. Unprincipled writers calculate on this 
craving after excitement, which adheres in some de- 
gree to all minds, but especially to the less educat- 
ed, and delight to pamper it ; and when for this 
purpose, they entertain the public with delineations 
of unmixed wickedness and alluring sensuality, 
which can only tend to confuse the moral percep- 
tions and pervert the sentiments of the reader — no 
language is strong enough to reprobate such mon- 
strous productions, as a hideous disturbance of the 
spiritual harmonies of creation and a daring insult 
to humanity. But setting such exceptional cases 
aside — it is certainly true, that genius has put forth 
its highest efforts in tracing the course of lawless 
passion, of withering hate, of indomitable revenge, 
of wild ambition and of remorseless avarice ; and it 
may be asked, how could these wonderful pictures 
have been produced, without an experimental know- 
ledge of the dark secrets which they disclose \ Is 
not the purchase of so deep an insight into the mys- 
teries of human nature, worth a few violations of 
the conventional morality of society ? If we analyse 



272 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

this question, we shall find in it no vindication of a 
familiarity with vice. For what really fascinates us 
in the darker portraitures of the dramatist and no- 
velist — is not vice viewed in itself as the end of the 
representation — -but the struggle which it calls forth 
and sustains with purer and nobler tendencies — 
those touches of natural affection, those relentings 
of human tenderness and compassion, those convul- 
sive starts and throbbings of a conscience not yet ex- 
tinguished, which deepen our interest in goodness 
by fearful contrast with the demoniac power that 
would crush it — and that display of a mighty will 
and a commanding intellect, which invests perverted 
aims and strong passions with a certain character of 
greatness, and makes us look on man even in his 
degradation and his fall, as a being of wonderful 
and glorious capacity. Take away these glimpses 
of moral significance ; leave pure, unredeemed wick- 
edness in their place ; and if your own mind be not 
already corrupted by it, you will turn away from 
the picture in disgust. The attraction is not in the 
evil, but in the good which is so mysteriously inter- 
woven with it, and which is made more affecting by 
its strange accompaniments. Where the whole is 
one dark blot of shade, there can be no picture. In 
the hands of a true artist, shade is only introduced 
in subserviency to light : effect, expression, beauty 
depend on light alone. 

When it is affirmed, that those who have so 
powerfully depicted vice, must themselves have 
been experimentally acquainted with it — this can 
only be admitted with important qualifications. 



THE TKUE KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE. 273 

They must, it is true, have penetrated far and wide 
and deep in the ways of the world, and seen them 
with their own eyes — had free intercourse with men 
of every character and condition, nor kept aloof 
from their darkest and saddest haunts. No closet- 
student — no reader of humanity through books — 
could ever have become a Shakspeare, a Moliere or 
a Goethe. They must, no doubt, have known vice 
well and been in frequent contact with it, but — such 
is the protecting influence with which the highest 
genius ever invests the mind — without being over- 
mastered or enslaved by it. The power of dealing 
with any agent, implies that we have it under our 
control. To apprehend it distinctly, and be able to 
analyse it — its bewildering influence over us must 
have ceased, and we must look at it quietly from a 
certain distance. To command any subject ade- 
quately, we must stand above it. The great men 
who have dissected the human heart, and laid bare 
its secrets, and displayed the manners in the broad 
lights and shades of an unceremonious truth, may 
in their darker and more unguarded moments have 
been borne away by the impetuosity of passion, or 
surrendered themselves to the intoxication of vicious 
indulgence : but they must have held the rein of 
their own impulses, and been able, when they chose, 
to bid them stop, or the power of their genius to 
that extent was enfeebled and in peril. Only by the 
light of what was still pure and noble in their own 
minds, could they discriminate the true features of 
vice, and hold them up to the abhorrence of man- 
kind. No writer of real genius ever painted vice 
13 



274 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

as an object to be admired for itself, or was ever so 
completely its victim as to lose his own moral sense. 
Genius in its highest function cannot co-exist with 
a corrupted moral sentiment. !Not that genius and 
the moral sentiment are coincident or necessarily in 
unison ; for genius is the intuitive perception of 
what is — moral sentiment, the feeling of what ought 
to be : but every function of our being, however 
powerful and creative, must then exert its genuine 
and proper force, when it operates in harmony with 
the other elements of the complex nature to which 
it belongs. 

This is not to assert, that men of genius have 
generally been men of blameless lives. The fact is 
confessedly otherwise. Their passions may be ex- 
pected to be strong in proportion to the susceptibil- 
ity of their temperament : — but as a compensation, 
they are usually endowed with a vigour of intellect 
and a depth of moral feeling, if not always with an 
energy of will, which render their occasional aber- 
rations less dangerous by securing greater facility of 
return, and in most cases suffice to preserve them 
from utter degradation. Sometimes good and evil 
influences are so balanced in their life, that it is 
passed in violent alternations from one to the other — 
in prostrations that level them with the brute, fob 
lowed by spasmodic efforts after a virtue more than 
human. If the ascendancy of the higher nature is 
once permanently laid low, genius also droops and 
can no longer soar. No ordinary man, then, is 
justified in appealing to the questionable precedents 
of genius. Genius has stronger impulses to plead ; 



THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE. 



275 



it has also a stronger intellect to restrain and guide. 
If you ask the same latitude for the vehemence of 
your passions, you must show, that you have the 
same controlling power. You must consider the 
peril of the experiment. You must ask yourself 
whether, if you once venture forth on the wide sea 
of folly and excess, you are likely to find at some 
future day enough of wisdom and energy in your 
soul, to pilot your course through the reefs and 
breakers, amidst which the gifted spirits of Burns 
and Sheridan and Coleridge, made such disastrous 
shipwreck. Profit by the experience of others. 
Enough has been written, to lay open to you all the 
mysteries of vice. It is a superficial affair, and soon 
understood. Age after age it renews the same mis- 
erable game, and betrays the same poverty of re- 
sources. Minds of rare endowment have accepted 
its offers, and proved its hollowness, and recorded 
their penitence for your instruction. Ponder well 
what they have written ; compare it with what you 
feel in yourself and what you observe in others ; and 
you will get a sufficient insight into the few odious 
realities, in the knowledge of which from personal 
experience, some men would fain persuade you, that 
true practical wisdom consists. Man's history is 
one long record of experiments. Where you see 
others have fallen and sunk into misery, why should 
you gratuitously incur the same risk and expose 
yourself to the same sufferings, when nothing new is 
to be learned, and the retributions of the past can 
only be repeated in the future ? 

Know the world, then ; know it well — but in a 



276 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

wise and noble sense. Go forth into it with a free 
and manly courage, protected by virtuous habit and 
guided by firm and enlightened principle. Go, 
with a heart open to all its sympathies and an eye 
keenly observant of its manifold experience ; but 
keep your own life and soul uncontaminated from 
the sin which so deeply pervades it. Sin will only 
darken your vision and perplex your way. Sin is 
but the shade and negation of existence. If you 
seek reality, give up your reason to know the whole 
truth, and your will to practise all that is right. Fear 
not that life will ever become too easy or too smooth 
a task. With the strongest moral power and the 
clearest moral insight, there will still remain enough, 
to puzzle and confound — enough to struggle against 
— enough to rouse our deepest interest and liveliest 
sensibility — enough to require the fullest exertion of 
our highest faculties. Repose was not intended for 
man. His progress must be a perpetual endeavour. 
As we slowly rise in the moral scale, things which 
we once acquiesced in or were indifferent to, strike 
us as evils and sins, brought out in strong relief by 
contrast with a purer sense of moral beauty and a 
clearer consciousness of moral elevation. — Never- 
theless, avoid scrupulousness. Having fixed your 
principles and habits and settled your predominant 
aim, be not too solicitous about the effect of particu- 
lar acts and particular words. Character is deter- 
mined by the general rule of life, not by the casual 
exception. Cherish an enthusiasim for whatever is 
pure and noble and excellent. StoOp to nothing 
mean or sordid or base. Be more intent on the ac- 



THE TRUE KNOWLEDGE OF LIFE. 



complishment of some great good, worthy and ade- 
quate to fill your affections and absorb your interest 
and stimulate your highest endeavour, than over- 
anxious to shun the smaller errors, which may jar 
for a moment on the conventional proprieties of so- 
ciety, but when the heart is pure and the aim is up- 
right, will be overborne and compensated by the 
prevailing tendency of the character. Ardour for 
right inspires greatness and elevation of soul. Sim- 
ple fearfulness of wrong contracts the vision and 
paralyses the will. If you would become a true 
moral hero, exercise your reason freely, and persist 
in the course which conscience bids you take, with- 
out fearing either the judgments of men or the con- 
sequences of your own acts. Seek your strength in 
the spirit of a living faith. Live to God, and work 
in God. Transfer the life of Christ into your own 
life. That will sanctify every element of your moral 
being ; make you all but omnipotent in the cause of 
truth and right ; and deliver you for ever from the 
torment of fear and scrupulousness. Seek out and 
welcome goodness and beauty in all things. They 
are there, if you will only look for them. To the 
pure all things are pure. Use Whatever is, and 
whatever must be, as so much power confided to 
you by God and subject to your own responsible 
will, for bringing into existence, promoting and dis- 
seminating, all which you perceive ought to be, and 
which, in the same degree that you are faithful and 
have trust in God, will at last certainly prevail. 



XVII. 



THE RELIGION OF THE INTELLECT AND THE RE- 
LIGION OF THE HEART. 

Matthew, vi. 22. 
" The light of the body is the eye : if therefore thine eye be single, 
thy whole body shall be full of light.'' 

There is a close analogy between things spiritual 
and material. We interpret the one by the aid of 
the other. What the eye is to the outward, the soul 
is to the inward, nature of man — the organ and 
avenue of light. By that faculty within us which 
we call the soul, we know God, and apprehend duty, 
and conceive the hope of immortality. Through 
the soul comes the light, without which our mortal 
pathway would be involved in darkness. It is im- 
portant that a light so essential to our highest wel- 
fare, should reach us pure, unbroken and strong, and 
pervade every part of our being — intellect, affection, 
will and action. We need a clear and open spiritual 
eye, as the all-illuminating sun of our interior frame ; 
that every power and sympathy and aspiration may 
be turned to the fountain of light, and drink in its 
beams, and Religion become a penetrating and im- 
pregnating principle of the entire man. There is a 
tendency, however, in the religious element to insu- 
late itself in some one of our various faculties, and 



RELIGION OF INTELLECT AND HEART. 279 

to withdraw from the rest — to manifest itself, for 
example, as mere feeling, or mere intellect, or mere 
outward action. Such a confinement of the princi- 
ple best suits perhaps the indolence or native tem- 
perament of the individual. He resigns himself 
without effort or self-control to constitutional im- 
pulse or the disposal of circumstances. He com 
pounds for the absence of Religion in certain regions 
of his being, by cultivating it with great earnestness, 
where it is easy and agreeable to him, as a kind of 
second nature or spontaneous growth. But the dis- 
tinctive character of Religion as such, is its univer- 
sality and absoluteness — embracing in its grasp all 
the constituents of humanity. Other principles lie 
within the limits of our nature, and assume certain 
parts of it as their appropriate domain. Social and 
civil duty for example, occupy our active powers ; 
science and abstract truth engage the intellect ; and 
the domestic relations take up and absorb our affec- 
tions. But religion transcends our finite being, and 
enfolds it from without. It is the spiritual atmos- 
phere, in which the soul is suspended and exercises 
its vital functions. The true power and manifesta- 
tion, therefore, of Religion are to be seen, not in any 
one of our. faculties by itself, but in the harmonious 
balance and co-operation of all of them, under its 
searching influence and commanding sway. 

It has been a question much agitated at all times 
and not least in the present day, whether Religion be 
an affair of the Reason or of the Heart. Men have 
even split into parties on the subject, and by mutual 
r eaction driven each other into absurd extremes on 



280 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



both sides. This has been the chief point of contro- 
versy respecting the distribution of religious influ- 
ence. None really acquainted with the nature of 
Religion, have ever thought of limiting its sphere to 
certain outward actions, without reference to their 
source. There are few who have not seen, that Re- 
ligion, wherever originating, must at least be an in- 
ward principle. It is only in the last stage of relig- 
ious indifference, that the value of any conviction or 
feeling is wholly denied, and men accept an out- 
ward conformity to the usages of the Church, con- 
joined with a moral life, as a sufficient test of Chris- 
tianity. So long as Religion is a living principle, 
the question will constantly be raised — what is its 
proper source ? the Understanding or the Heart ? 

We may distinguish the two tendencies, taking 
their departure from these different sources — as the 
Rationalist and the Mystical ; each in its final issue 
representing an extreme, between which the true 
spirit of Christian belief steers a middle course. 
The Rationalist tendency usually commences in a 
healthful re-action — either against a dull, uninquir- 
ing formalism that slumbers under the spell of tra- 
ditional phrases to which no distinct meaning is 
attached, — or else against a wild fanaticism carried 
away by vague and obscure feelings which are ac- 
cepted as the substitute for steadfast principle and 
virtuous conduct. Such a state of deadness or aber- 
ration continually supervenes in the history of relig- 
ious life : and when it is perceived and begins to be 
resisted — reformers make it their one object, to ob- 
tain clear ideas, as the great desideratum in Relig- 



RELIGION OF INTELLECT AND HEART. 281 

ion — to retain no opinion and practice for which an 
unanswerable reason cannot be assigned — to find 
premises in the region of definite and well-estab- 
lished fact, and to evolve the authority of the whole 
system of faith and worship in logical sequence out 
of them. The process of purgation is often sweep- 
ing and summary. Whatever cannot be subjugated 
to the conditions and brought within the limits thus 
arbitrarily determined — is at once cast forth as un- 
sound, the seed of mischief and delusion. Under 
an overpowering dread of superstition and enthu- 
siasm, feeling and imagination are banished from 
the domain of Religion. The vigorous fulness of 
unconscious poetry in which its earliest spirit was 
nursed, is carefully evaporated, and the meagre re- 
siduum collected and preserved as science'. In all 
ages of the Church, we meet with individuals dis- 
tinguished for their rationalising tendencies ; but 
there are crises which particularly favour the devel- 
opment of this critical and negative spirit, when it 
becomes ascendant in the minds of earnest and 
thinking men, and sets its stamp on the prevalent 
theology of the time. In the genius of Luther him- 
self there was a large infusion of the poetical ele- 
ment, which qualified the Rationalist bias of the 
reformer; but the principles which his position 
obliged him to appeal to, tended ultimately to Ra- 
tionalism, and when taken up by men of drier and 
more logical minds — Calvin, Zwingli, and Socinus — 
led inevitably to that result. From the first great 
protest in the age of Luther, down to the close of the 
13* 



282 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

last century — with occasional and transient resist- 
ance from a few men of fervid and enthusiastic 
spirit — the strengthening tendency of the Protestant 
mind of Europe has been towards Rationalism. 
The actuating spirit of all sects, though disguised 
at first in an effervescence of enthusiasm, is at bot- 
tom rationalistic. They want a more decided ex- 
pression of dogma, than is found in the quiescent 
bosom of older churches ; they crave more freedom 
of speech and act, than they have enjoyed in their 
previous associations ; and both these demands call 
the reason into vigorous play. The last three cen- 
turies have been remarkable for the activity of 
sects ; and this alone indicates the working of a 
latent Rationalism. 

The Mystic tendency has its source in an oppo- 
site demand. It recoils from the affected precision 
and cold distinctness of a scientific theology. It has 
no pleasure in the hard and definite forms that stand 
out sharp and clear in the frosty light of the intel- 
lect. It seeks a return into the dimmer regions of 
fancy and affection. It wants the soul — the myste- 
rious breath of inner life — which it feels should be 
present in every utterance of religious thought. In- 
stead of aiming at a logical continuity of ideas, or 
exactly circumscribing the terms in which piety 
gives vent to its inward fulness of emotion — it 
dreads and shuns such scholastic rigour, as a check 
on the free soaring of the heart, and a confinement 
of the spiritual within the narrow limits of things 
finite and sensible. Deep, silent feeling— secret 



RELIGION OF INTELLECT AND HEART. 283 

converse with God — the quiet expectancy of his 
spirit — comparative indifference to outward forms 
and questions of doctrine — such are the signs and 
operations of the Mystic principle. Sometimes in 
its more vehement working, it has thrown the minds 
which it had seized, out of their previous commu- 
nion, and given birth to sects. This has been when 
the stimulus of persecution was applied. For more 
generally, the Mystic tendency is too quiescent and 
contemplative to be sectarian. It is more disposed 
to find a common soul of spiritualism under all the 
recognised dogmas and established forms of existing 
churches, which in themselves it surveys with placid 
indifference, or simply uses as means made effective 
by arbitrary association, for kindling exalted states 
of religious emotion. In the Mystic, feelings replace 
ideas. He retires into himself, and owns the pres- 
ence of God in a calm and holy frame of mind, or 
at times amidst silent contemplations of the grand 
and beautiful aspects of external nature. As this 
tendency deepens, God, duty, heaven gradually lose 
their distinctness as objective ideas, and melt away 
into mere sentiment — become mental conditions so 
purely subjective, that although affection still vi- 
brates faintly through them, they offer no material 
to the understanding and furnish but a feeble stim- 
ulus to the will. This is the extreme phase of the 
principle — its corruption and decline. In its earlier 
stages, it may co-exist with the noblest intellectual 
powers and finest qualities of the heart. Many are 
the beautiful and instructive works that have been 



284 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

written under its influence. Fenelon and a Kempis 
suffice to show what deep-thoughted wisdom and 
spiritual loveliness it can infuse into mind and char- 
acter. 

It is quite evident, that there is some truth and 
some error in both the Rationalist and the Mystic 
tendencies ; and that they have been driven vio- 
lently asunder from a common centre where they 
ought to subsist in unison. There can be no steady 
and operative belief, without some clear and definite 
idea embraced by the understanding. In all belief, 
therefore, there must be a rationalistic element. 
But in genuine piety, there will also be a depth and 
intensity of feeling, more than proportionate to any 
ideas which can possibly come within the grasp of 
the intellect, and re-inforced by influences from that 
dim region of the Infinite, where distinct ideas are 
out of the question. In all true faith, then, there 
is room and need for a mystic element : and where 
it does not exist, faith is weak and imperfect. 

The basis of faith is our inherent consciousness 
of realities that transcend the limits of the outward 
sense. God, a responsible soul, a spiritual world — 
are beliefs that grow out of the natural workings of 
a primitive feeling. Such a feeling is the elemental 
matter out of which our moral nature is formed. 
All our thoughts and acts presuppose its existence. 
Its entire absence would involve the abnegation of 
our humanity. Its possession marks the distinction 
between man and brute. There was a deep truth 
in the words of a great schoolman : ' I do not seek 



RELIGION OF INTELLECT AND HEART. 285 



to understand, that I may believe ; but I believe, 
that I may understand.'* Belief is the root of un- 
derstanding. But this primitive feeling — this intui- 
tive belief — is only the rudiment of Religion. Re- 
flection and reasoning must intervene, to mould it 
into form — in other words, to convert it into dogma 
and make it apprehensible by the understanding. 
This they effect by defining the vagueness of the 
original feeling, and distinctly realising it to percep- 
tion, through the aid of phenomena that lie con- 
stantly under our immediate inspection. That great 
fact of mind springing up and growing within our- 
selves, supplies a measure of intelligible comparison 
for the boundless agencies which lie beyond us. The 
mutual adaptation, the order and the harmony so 
visible in creation, present the counterpart of effects 
which our own minds, within a narrower sphere, 
have the power of originating. Thus mind becomes 
to us an expression of Deity : and in forming a con- 
ception of the Supreme Mind, the Rationalist will 
be careful to admit no elements but such as are jus- 
tifiable to reason, warranted by moral sense, and in 
harmony with pure and holy affection. The mate- 
rial of Religion is given a priori / form is impressed 
on it by the recipient and reflecting subject. As a 
consequence, form or dogma always sustains a cer- 
tain relation to the individuality of the believer, and 
corresponds to his power of apprehending and real- 

* Neque enim qnaero intelligere ut credam, sed credo ut intelli- 
gam. Nam qui non erediderit, non experietur, et qui expertus non 
fuerit, non intelliget.' The words which Schleiermacher has taken 
from Anselm, as a motto to his ' Christliche Glaube.' 



286 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

ising things infinite. On the other hand, the feel- 
ings of awe and reverence and trust which lie within 
the dogmatic conception and form its hidden soul, 
with such limitation and construction of them, as 
necessarily result from the universal laws of the 
human intellect and conscience — constitute the 
spiritual heritage of all pious souls and contain the 
germs of a Religion for mankind. But if in the 
effort to define dogmas — in controversy respecting 
them — or in seeking to impose a common type of 
them on all minds — the fundamental feeling in 
which they originated, and from which alone they 
derive any value or significance, should be enfeebled 
and lost; — then it is clear, that, the whole subject 
under discussion, turns on the choice and colloca- 
tion of words from which the living soul is fled, and 
that divines justly incur the charge so often alleged 
against them, of contending about a non-entity. 
They may work out a logical formula, but they will 
not develope a spiritual truth. 

The importance of dogmas diners for communi- 
ties and for individuals. In a church — which means 
a free union of worshippers — dogmas should be as 
few as possible — more implied and tacitly agreed 
upon, than distinctly expressed — and in their effect 
rather negative than positive, rather excluding the 
elements of probable discord, than defining points 
of agreement where the general heart and con- 
science, imbued with the spirit of Christianity, may 
be left to find a spontaneous sympathy. The pro- 
per object of a church is to preserve and cherish the 
feeling of Religion among mankind, and through 



KELIGION OF INTELLECT AND HEART. 287 

the repeated concentration and reinforcement of it 
in acts of social devotion, to send it forth with new 
power and impulse into the whole inward and out- 
ward life. For this purpose, there must, it is ob- 
vious, be some dogmatic agreement, but only in re- 
lation to broad, fundamental principles. There must 
be agreement respecting the object of worship, the 
sentiments and dispositions which are believed to 
be most acceptable to Him, and the mode in which 
the feelings of love and reverence towards Him 
should be outwardly and publicly expressed. There 
must be an avoidance in the language of the com- 
mon worship, though not as necessarily in discourses 
from the pulpit, of all such topics as lie outside the 
recognised circle of sentiment within which the min- 
gled hearts of the society can beat in unison ; for 
there are many topics on which individuals may 
hold the greatest diversity of opinion without any di- 
minution of high and holy sympathy in the essential 
feelings of Religion. In this sense, the observation 
is undoubtedly true, which has often been exposed 
to unmerited ridicule, that the uniting principle of 
church membership should be sought rather in the 
heart than in the head. 

But the duty of the individual in regard to dog- 
mas, goes far beyond this point. If he feels — as 
every serious mind must feel — the essential gran- 
deur and solemnity of Religion — he will earnestly 
address his reason to the subject. By the exercise 
of his highest faculties, he will try to solve for him- 
self the great problem of existence, and to harmo- 
nise the demands of faith and intellect. This is the 



288 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

obvious duty of the individual, though many do not 
regard it as such ; and till there has been an honest 
and energetic effort to fulfil it — at least practically 
and provisionally — no man possesses a true wisdom. 
Personal faith must rest to a considerable extent on 
clear and well-defined dogma. Dogma is the form 
in which the religious feelings of an individual fix 
and set themselves, so as to hold a positive relation 
to his understanding and exert an instrumental force 
upon his will. In the religious domain of a com- 
munity, large spaces must be left open and free, un- 
occupied by any dogmatic determination ; but in the 
faith of the individual, all these must be filled up — 
so far as he has intellectual strength for the task — • 
to the inward peace and contentment of his own 
spirit. He will read, and reflect, and examine con- 
troverted points — and, where his own powers fail, 
he will accept the best authority to which reason 
conducts him, as a provisional guide — only to settle 
practical conviction and quiet disturbing doubts — 
only to send down Religion with a deeper root into 
his inmost soul, to engage all his faculties and affec- 
tions more heartily in its service — and to envelope 
his entire being in a perpetual atmosphere of holy 
and devout sentiment. Such are the respective func- 
tions and mutual relations of Intellect and Feeling 
in the culture of Religion. 

Religion — who can doubt it ? — is the noblest of 
themes for the exercise of intellect. To search out 
the character and designs of the Infinite Being — to 
trace his laws in the wondrous economy of creation 
— to weigh the deep and subtle questions that are 



RELIGION OF INTELLECT AND HEART. 



289 



involved in the essential conditions of spiritual ex- 
istence, God's all-embracing causality, man's freedom 
and responsibility — to meditate on duty, death, re- 
tribution, immortality — to contemplate the revela- 
tions of the Divine Mind in the minds of sages and 
holy men and prophets and a Christ — to read the 
eternal thoughts of God in the great book of human 
history — to pursue that marvellous fact of Chris- 
tianity from age to age and from clime to clime, 
winding its golden thread unbroken through the dark 
tissue of human passions and woes, ever witnessing 
amidst scornful indifference and hostile unbelief, the 
reality of a diviner life than that of earth — to bal- 
ance the claims of those vast powers of Church and 
State, which still convulse the world with their jeal- 
ousy and conflict— lo ! here are subjects of surpass- 
ing greatness and interest, which have tasked the 
efforts of the mightiest spirits — a Pascal, a Leibnitz, 
a Newton, a Locke, a Kant, a Schleiermacher : and 
no one who reflects on their profound meditations, 
their elaborate reasonings, and their solemn utter- 
ances of conviction— can doubt, that Religion is no 
idle sport of momentary feeling, but an awful truth 
which underlies ail other truths, and demands for 
its illustration and enforcement the consenting 
homage and service of all our human powers. 

Still it was feeling — a sense of something anterior 
to reasoning, and the basis of all knowledge — a faith 
that rose silently from the inner consciousness and 
infused itself into every intellectual operation — - 
which impelled those great men to exercise their 
highest faculties on the solemn theme, and opened 



290 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



their hearts to the influx of sympathies which they 
shared in common with the simplest and most un- 
learned of their race. Yes, it was feeling which 
made them religious — the same feeling which fills 
the bosom of the child with wondering reverence 
and awe when the name of God is first associated 
with the beauty and grandeur and immensity of the 
visible universe — the same feeling which in humbler 
spheres binds men to duty and comforts them in sor- 
row, and inspires them in the consciousness of an 
invisible presence with holy love and a sublime trust. 
The wisest can only be religious through those com- 
mon sympathies, which remind us all, whatever be 
our degree of intellectual cultivation, that we are 
members of one human family — which strengthen 
the virtuous to help and encourage each other, when 
the cause of right and truth seems failing in the 
earth — which gather with tenderer, holier influence 
around the heart, as the light of life grows pale, and 
the shade steals on which to mortal eyes will quench 
it for ever. In such sympathies the vital power of 
Religion consists. Its proper seat is in the heart. 
Such are feelings, which all alike require — which 
shed a sacred calm on the last moments of the 
Christian scholar and sage, and dispel all gloom from 
the bed where the lowliest child of poverty and toil 
gives back his spirit to his Creator. If Religion is 
unable to nurse these sympathies and supply these 
feelings — it is an empty name. Ah ! Christian, what 
will it avail thee, when the sad and solemn realities 
of existence press heavily on thy heart, that thou art 
versed in all the subtleties of dogmatic lore, and 



RELIGION OF INTELLECT AND HEART. 291 

hast sounded the depths of controversy, and canst 
produce a reason for every article of thy creed, of 
which the ablest adversary is unable to dispossess 
thee? Canst thou find spiritual nourishment in 
these things ? Do they yield thee the vital strength 
and inward solace of Religion % If thou hast never 
tasted the holy peace, which descends into the sim- 
plest heart, when it fervently realises the presence 
of God — if no gleam from the future life ever bright- 
ens thy earthly way — if the sores and irritations of 
thy contact with the world, are never soothed and 
softened by the healing consciousness of a divine 
love — thou hast studied to little purpose, and the 
fountains of a true happiness are yet sealed up to 
thee. Go rather and forsake thy books ; cast off the 
cumbrous pedantry that oppresses thy brain and 
darkens thy affections ; and learn a better lesson of 
that humble follower of Christ, whose highest wis- 
dom is to know and serve God — whose Religion fills 
his heart with joy and his life with love. 



XVIil. 



THE GROUNDS AND LIMITS OF SPIRITUAL 
AUTHORITY. 

Hebrews, xii. 9. 

" We have had fathers of our flesh, which corrected us, and we 
gave them reverence : shall we not much rather be in subjection unto 
the Father of our spirits and live?" 

The question of authority in Religion, with its 
relation to the rights of private judgment, is by the 
majority of men very imperfectly understood, and, 
when thoroughly looked into, presents more diffi- 
culty than superficial thinkers perceive. Few Pro- 
testants comprehend its real nature and whole ex- 
tent. From the inherent inconsistency of the posi- 
tion which they ordinarily assume, and their unwil- 
lingness to recognise any element of truth in the 
grounds of their adversaries, they lay themselves 
open to attacks, in their controversy with the Catho- 
lics, which it is impossible effectually to repel. To 
this cause, quite as much as to any insidious influ- 
ence of papal emissaries, we must ascribe the great 
increase of Romish principles among the educated 
classes of this country, ever since the revival of an 
interest in Church questions. As hitherto conducted, 



GROUNDS OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. 293 



discussion has rather weakened than strengthened 
Protestantism. 

There are only three positions which the mind 
can possibly take, for the settlement of controverted 
points and the fixation of its own religious belief : — 
(1.) that of individual self-reliance; (2.) that of 
submission to some accredited authority from the 
Past, either in a sacred scripture or in a symbolical 
book expository of scripture ; (3.) that of deference 
to some perpetual and concurrent authority, in a 
living person or body of persons. In a great number 
of cases, these principles are variously intermingled 
with each other ; they can never perhaps be kept 
entirely separate : but the decided predominance of 
one of them, gives a distinguishing character to the 
faith which is moulded under its influence. We 
may hence divide all religious belief into three grand 
forms, marked off from each other by their funda- 
mental principle : (1.) Free Inquiry, which refers 
the decision of every question predominantly and 
ultimately to the individual judgment ; (2.) Pro- 
testantism, which acknowledges Scripture as the all- 
sufficient authority, but usually adopts some recog- 
nised interpretation of it, in a creed or a catechism, 
as its actual guide ; and (3.) Catholicism, which 
submits to'the present determination of the Church, 
whether its authority be represented by one indivi- 
dual or by many. On one or other of these grounds 
or some composition of them, can we alone arrive at 
any conclusion respecting matters of faith. These 
are the fixed limits, within which lies the whole field 
of religious controversy. Let us examine each of 



294 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

these principles in turn, and consider, what can be 
alleged on behalf of them, and wherein thej prove 
themselves wanting. We will- take them in the 
reverse order of that in which they have been now 
stated — beginning with the Catholic. 

I. The Catholic system affirms the necessity of 
an unbroken line of traditional authority from the 
age of the apostles to the present day — to transmit 
and authenticate the truths of Christianity. Till the 
general recognition of a scriptural canon, which can- 
not be dated before the middle at least of the second 
century — tradition was necessary to preserve Chris- 
tianity in existence : and the heads of the churches 
which had received it in the first instance from 
the apostles, were its proper witnesses and represen- 
tatives to the world. Scripture itself was at length 
owned and ratified by the same individuals who 
had hitherto perpetuated the tradition.* Scripture 
became then a substitute for the earlier tradition ; 
or rather it embodied the selectest substance of the 
tradition in a fixed and permanent form. And yet 
the excluded portion of the tradition could not be 
wholly dispensed with, as a concurrent authority 
and a help to interpretation. From the complex 
and multifarious character of Scripture, from its par- 
tially discordant materials, and from its openness to 
an endless variety of construction — any approach to 
uniformity of belief or agreement in practice was 
obviously impossible, without the erection of some 

* Such 1 suppose to have been the class of persons designated by 
Eusebius as oi Kara SiaSoxas iiocXricnacrriKo'i. — Hist. Eccles. II. 25. III. 
25, with Heinichen's Note. 



GROUNDS OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. 295 



tribunal which might serve at once, as a witness of 
what had hitherto once been received as true doc- 
trine, and as an authority to pronounce, in cases yet 
undecided, what should be considered such for times 
to come. Who so fit for the exercise of this double 
function, as those who had filled, or were still fill- 
ing, the highest stations in the Church — through 
whom under the influence of the Spirit, it was be- 
lieved, that the living tradition of Christianity had 
been handed down from the first age — and whose 
united voice was accepted as the voice of God ? — 
GEcumenic councils have settled fundamental points ; 
the fathers transmit a long chain of judgments from 
century to century ; bishops for the time being take 
up and interpret the doctrines delivered to them ; 
and the sovereign bishop or Pope collects, expresses 
and executes the consentient decrees of the whole 
Church. Such in general is the constitution of the 
authority which Catholics plead for, as legitimately 
vested in their Church.* 

From the obvious necessity for uninterrupted 
tradition to warrant the pure conveyance of a histo- 
rical religion, and for some competent tribunal to 
decide what is law, in a book so obscure and con- 
flicting in many of its statements, as Scripture — 

* The Catholic doctrine of Tradition is luminously expounded by 
Mohler in his Symbolik, § 38 and 39. ' Die Tradition is das fort- 
wahrend in deu Herzen der Glaubigen lebende Wort. — Die Tradition 
im objectiven Sinne ist der in ausserlichen historischen Zeugnissen 
vorliegende Gesammtglaube der Kirche durch alle Jahrhunderte 
hindurch : in diesem Sinne wird gewohnlioh die Tradition die Norm, 
die Richtschnur der Schrifterklarung, die Glaubensregel, genannt, 
p. 357. 



296 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

Catholic disputants are able to invest their case with 
a sufficient show of plausibility, to puzzle those who 
are not so prejudiced as to see only one side of the 
question, and yet have never reasoned down the 
subject to its fundamental principles. And all these 
considerations acquire a double force, when certain 
assumptions adroitly slipped in among them, are 
unsuspectingly admitted by the mind : first, that 
some one clearly defined, exclusive and self-consist- 
ent system of doctrine is essential to the preserva- 
tion of Christian truth, the purity of the Church, and 
the salvation of individuals ;• and secondly, that as 
the multitude cannot evolve this system from Scrip- 
ture for themselves, so men of the highest station 
in the Church must derive from their position the 
necessary qualifications for discovering the truth and 
an inherent authority to declare it. In affirmation 
of these claims, the Catholics lay stress on particu- 
lar texts of Scripture. But Scripture, were its lan- 
guage ever so explicit, could not furnish the creden- 
tials of any such authority as is assumed ; since 
Scripture emanated as a rule or canon from the very 
class in whose favour it is required to speak. To 
cite it for this purpose, is like producing a man as his 
own witness in his own court. When the attempt 
is made to ground these high pretensions on history 
independent of Scripture, we detect such contrarie- 
ty of opinion on fundamental questions, and so many 
instances of human passion and infirmity, in the 
most eminent fathers — such vacillation and incon- 
sistency of purpose, so much intrigue and corrup- 
tion, and even violence in the measures which are 



GROUNDS OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. 297 

known to have influenced the decisions of ecclesias- 
tical councils — that no man who forms his judgment 
from facts, can repose his faith with any assurance 
on authorities like these. Nevertheless, when the 
assumptions to which I have adverted, are incau- 
tiously allowed to pass, and conscious inability to 
solve the many difficult questions confidently af- 
firmed to involve eternal salvation, is brought home 
by a skilful advocacy to unprepared and susceptible 
minds — it is not surprising, that some should finally 
give way to the specious fallacies of this subtle mix- 
ture of truth and falsehood. 

II. Protestantism at its outset had a heavy 
charge of the worst corruption to allege against 
Catholicism. Selfish and ambitious men had accu- 
mulated abuse on abuse, and thrown up, in defence 
of their own power and wealth, a huge mass of rite 
and usage, cemented by the vilest superstition, for 
which not the shadow of a reason could be found in 
Scripture or the primitive institution of Christ. A 
superficial theology and a lax morality had diffused 
themselves with the secular disorders of the Church. 
Tradition under cover of mediaeval darkness had 
wholly disjoined itself from Scripture, and rioted at 
large without check or control. A latent heathen- 
ism was its actuating principle. Things were said 
and done in the name of Christ, utterly abhorrent 
to the spirit of his religion. There was not the trace 
of a similitude between the lordly and voluptuous 
prelates of the Koman hierarchy and the simple 
missionaries of Galilee. Like the scribes of old, the 
ecclesiastical rulers of this western world had made 
14 



298 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

the Word of God of none effect by their tradition. 
In all these things Protestantism had a strong case 
for itself, and in the first impulse of its sincere and 
fervent zeal, went, as it is believed, to the root of 
the whole matter. It took Scripture directly and 
exclusively as the sole witness of Divine truth, to 
which the authority of the Church and the reason of 
individual man, both deeply tainted by hereditary 
sin, must equally bow. But Protestantism was soon 
startled by consequences — springing inevitably from 
the ground taken by her — which she was quite un- 
prepared for, and refused to admit. She had em- 
braced a principle which justified every man in be- 
coming bis own interpreter of Scripture, and put 
arguments into the hand of her great antagonist, 
which sbe was unable to repel without condemning 
her own separation. The Catholics reproached her 
— and with apparent reason — for having sown the 
seeds of incurable anarchy and confusion. She was 
perplexed and dismayed : and events soon made her 
aware of the incalculable extent of the consequences 
flowing from her own act, which she had not fore- 
seen. Yarious minds exulting in freedom, took up 
by a sort of elective affinity from Scripture, just 
those elements which most harmonised with their 
own moral and intellectual temperament, and pro- 
ceeded boldly to circulate them in practice ; nor 
was it without obvious justice that they referred to 
Luther's conduct in vindication of their own. Mun- 
zer and the Swabian peasants, John of Leyden and 
the visionaries of Munster, wild Antinomians on one 
hand, and cold, rationalising Socinians on the other 



GROUNDS OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. 299 

— all could produce some texts from the same vol- 
ume in favour of their several theories, and asked 
why Christian liberty was to begin and end with 
Luther himself. 

Before long all the larger sections of the Protes- 
tant Church drew out into public formularies, what 
they accepted as the substance of Christian doctrine 
contained in Scripture, and demanded from their 
adherents the profession of conformity to this recog- 
nised standard of truth. They still indeed appealed 
to Scripture as the only valid authority, especially 9 
in controversy with the Romanists ; but it was 
Scripture — not as it lay naked to the general eye, 
but as it was seen through the coloured medium of 
a particular theological system. There was more 
reason for such a course, in an age when men had 
long been accustomed to lean on external authority, 
than may at first view occur to those, who have not 
taken into account the many difficulties of Scriptural 
interpretation, nor well considered how much judg- 
ment is required to apply its lessons profitably to 
the actual circumstances of the world. But it was a 
course plainly inconsistent with the full development 
of the broad principle which Luther's necessities 
more perhaps than his deliberate choice had com- 
pelled him to adopt ; and it must be regarded, 
therefore, as an admission of precipitancy, and a re- 
trocession so far towards the authoritative principle 
of the older Church. Some minds were thrown back 
by a perception of these inconsistencies, into the 
communion which they had forsaken. They return- 



300 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY, 

ed, however, not unaffected by the crisis through 
which they had passed, and "blended with the re- 
sumption of their ancient associations, a spirit of ra- 
tionalism which has been compared for its union of 
philosophic and hierarchic tendencies, to some spec- 
ulations of the present day.* 

A great principle was undoubtedly asserted by 
the first Protestants — taking their stand as they did 
on a religion essentially historical — in concentrating 
attention and reverence on the documents which 
authenticated its origin and presented its genuine 
doctrines. They had reason, moreover, for the con- 
clusion which they soon embraced — that the unedu- 
cated multitude were incompetent to extract from 
the miscellaneous contents of Scripture, a clear and 
consistent rule of faith and practice — especially on 
the ground then generally assumed, that every part 
of it was inspired and of equal value. They were 
right in contending for the need of learning and 
cultivated, intellect to restrain and guide the blind 
fanaticism and impetuous ignorance of the popular 
mind. The Confessions put forth by the great Pro- 
testant divines, Melancthon, Calvin and Bullinger — 
and the Articles adopted by the Reformed Church 
of England — judged by the circumstances under 
which they were imposed — ought less to be con- 
sidered a deliberate- infringement on Christian lib- 
erty, than a provision for practical unity extorted by 

* See Neander's Historical Monograph — ' Theobald Thamer, der 
Represantant und Vorganger moderner Geistesrichtung in dem Re- 
formationszeitalter.' Berlin, 1842. 



GROUNDS OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. 301 



the necessities of the times, without which not a 
single church could have settled down into order and 
consistency. That Scripture simply and by itself 
can never be a direct rule for the belief and conduct 
of any extensive association of men, must be obvious 
to every one who will dispassionately consider what 
Scripture is. The fact is proved by universal expe- 
rience. No church can subsist without a creed, 
expressed or implied — a fixed or a progressive one ; 
and the medium through which that creed operates, 
is some exposition of doctrine interposed between 
the popular mind and Scripture itself. Subsequent- 
ly, indeed, the creed may be verified or proved false, 
by an immediate examination of Scriptural evi- 
dence ; but the cases are comparatively rare, and 
only under peculiar circumstances possible, in which 
an entire creed can be deduced at once and exclu- 
sively from Scripture. Even those who protest the 
most loudly and indignantly against creeds, in point 
of fact have, and require, one — like all their fellow 
Christians — although it may not be authoritatively 
set forth, and no public recital of it be in use. We 
observe, that all religious Societies decline, in which 
the spiritual consciousness is indistinct and weak — 
when the preaching is confined to vague, superficial 
generalities, with nothing marked and definite to 
indicate earnest conviction. In churches whose 
hereditary boast is the admission of the largest 
freedom of individual opinion, great stress is pro- 
perly laid on a careful instruction of the young in 
the grounds and principles of their faith ; and a 
demand goes forth repeatedly from their bosom, for 



302 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



some clear and explicit declaration of the implied 
belief.* 

So long, therefore, as Christianity shall be sup- 
posed to retain any dogmatic elements, and is not 
wholly resolved into a general spiritual influence — 
some creed, as a bond of Christian association, is 
not only not wrong, but inevitable. Every thing 
depends on its construction and extent, and the terms 
of its acceptance. It was the capital error of the 
first Protestants, which has enslaved so many of their 
descendants — that instead of a provisional form of 
belief, demanded by the time, but open to a pro- 
gressive expansion and development — they set up 
a rigid and permanent standard to which all must 
outwardly conform. The Formulary of Concord 
and the Thirty-Nine Articles are regarded by the 
Lutheran and Anglican Churches, as a fixed embodi- 
ment of Christian truth, to guide for all time the 

* The aversion from any systematic exposition of their belief, has 
been carried in England to a vicious extent by those Protestant sects 
that most pride themselves on their mental freedom. They ascribe it 
to their reliance on the sufficiency of Scripture, but it really indicates 
spiritual coldness and debility. No minds seem to exist among them 
of sufficient fervour and power, or sufficiently grounded in the need- 
ful theological discipline, to be capable of clearly grasping fundamental 
principles, and consequentially deducing from them, by the united aid 
of Scripture, history and reason, the great leading results of Christian 
doctrine and practice — not as an authoritative type of opinion, but as 
a help and a guide to the inquirer, and at least a proximate and pro- 
visional standard of belief by which to distinguish a particular section 
of the Universal Church. In Germany, Catholics and Protestants 
produce in abundance books of this description, which greatly assist 
the attainment of clear ideas on controverted points. With us no- 
thing of the sort is to be found. 



GROUNDS OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. 303 

teachings of their ministers — statements of doc- 
trine, which future learning is not to enlarge and 
modify, but simply to vindicate. The authoritative 
principle of Rome has been thus resumed by Pro- 
testantism — and with still less adaptation to the ever 
changing condition of the human mind : for the 
great idea of the old Church, was that of a living 
tradition, capable of growth from age to age, and 
ever developing new lights for the exposition of the 
written word. The fixedness of the later Romish 
system, as expressed in the decrees of the Council 
of Trent, has resulted from re-action against the new 
dogmatism by which Catholicism was assailed, and 
is therefore indirectly due to the tendencies of its 
adversary. Learning, it is true, and free inquiry, 
have always flourished to a great extent m Protes- 
tant churches and Protestant universities, — but more 
through the influence of principles which came into 
operation along with Protestantism, as involved in 
its fundamental postulate, than from the immediate 
action of Protestantism itself. It has ever been the 
tendency of the ecclesiastical element of Protestant- 
ism, in its great and recognised forms — to bind clown 
men's minds to a scrupulous maintenance of its 
original standards. Only by an extensive use of the 
system of accommodation have the later fruits of 
philology and abstract speculation enjoyed a preca- 
rious toleration under the recognised orthodoxy. In 
the new, as in the old, church, the false principle 
has been assumed, that human salvation is contin- 
gent on the acceptance of truth in a particular doc- 
trinal form. By setting up a rigid scripturalism 



304 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



against a fluctuating tradition — a past and perma- 
nent, instead of a present and variable, authority — 
Protestantism has often as completely denied the 
rights of the human mind, as Catholicism ; and 
though happily its reverence for Scripture has gen- 
erally secured a certain freedom of thought and lati- 
tude of inquiry at least within scriptural limits, yet 
its stern dogmatism and its narrow view of human 
relations to God have at times obstructed the pro- 
gress of truth and a genuine mental culture, if not 
as openly and avowedly, almost as effectually, as the 
ancient despotism. 

III. Free Inquiry, if it were true throughout to 
its fundamental principle, would cast off all external 
reliance and require a man to construct his religion 
entirely from personal resources. He must adopt 
nothing that he could not prove. But such absolute 
self-sufficiency is impossible. The social conditions 
of human development prevent it. Tradition and 
authority modify to an inconceivable extent the 
opinions and practice of the most independent minds. 
Many ideas and feelings which lie at the root of our 
religious belief, we are ail conscious were transmitted 
to us. We know, that we have had no share what- 
ever in producing them. They came to us ; and we 
took them — for a certain authority which they seem- 
ed to carry with themselves, not disputed but rather 
confirmed by other principles of our being. Ele- 
ments enter into all our reasonings and conclusions, 
which we are obliged to accept at second hand from 
persons whose character inspires us with trust, and 
whose knowledge and abilities qualify them to give 



GROUNDS OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. 305 

information. Questions come across us in the world, 
in regard to which we must form some opinion and 
take some course, although we are as yet incompe- 
tent to examine and settle them for ourselves. In 
the interval, therefore — without foregoing our right 
to inquire — we thankfully assume, as a provisional 
ground of action, the assurance of persons in whose 
judgment and integrity we have confidence, espe- 
cially where the instruction which they give, is not 
discordant with the previous results of our own rea- 
soning and experience. 

"With regard more particularly to religious usage 
and observances, and the traditions which determine 
the outward form and character of Christian churches 
— things in themselves indifferent, or only of rela- 
tive importance as giving body and expression to 
invisible and spiritual realities — that which we find 
already established, that into which we are born, and 
under which we have been trained and educated — 
where it does not war with any higher feeling nor 
check spiritual development — has a claim on our 
reverential acceptance, although we can assign no 
logical reason, why it should be exactly as it is and 
not otherwise, and although, had we now to make an 
arrangement for the first time, we might not strike 
out precisely the very thing that exists. Too much 
reasoning about such points implies an arid and un- 
fruitful scrupulousness. Spiritual agencies require 
a visible clothing and distinct utterance. Without 
some perceptible shape and determination, Religion 
cannot bind men together in a fellowship of worship, 
nor even subsist as a social power. So long as our 
14* 



306 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

souls are encased in flesh, intereouse and sympathy 
cannot wholly dispense with material links. "What 
is is therefore best, because it is, if it do not depress 
and hinder what ought to be. In this respect relig- 
ous, stand on the same footing with civil, institutions. 
If the spiritual substance whether of freedom or of 
piety be kept pure and allowed to expand, the con- 
taining vehicle and outward organism may be left 
with advantage to the accidents of history, or the 
transmitted influence of some creative mind of 
the past. There is a deference too which we spon- 
taneously yield to minds of eminent wisdom and 
sanctity, in their disclosures respecting that higher 
spiritual consciousness, wherein we perceive they 
lie so much nearer God than ourselves, though .we 
cannot assign any distinct logical grounds for the 
assurances they convey. This deference is the basis 
of prophetic authority, which overpowers to the de- 
gree in which it is felt, the perfect freedom and in- 
dependence of intellectual action. Increasing as it 
does in proportion to our conviction of the perfect 
holiness of its object, it is the secret of that profound 
veneration and trust which most religious natures 
associate with the person of Christ. 

In regard, then, to ideas imbibed in childhood, 
but through life lying at the root of our deepest 
belief — to knowledge indispensable to the complete- 
ness of opinion, but placed beyond our present 
means of verification — to forms which are but acci- 
dents in the outward manifestation of Religion, yet 
without which its spirit would want the needful in- 
strumentalities of influence — and to the trustful sub- 



GROUNDS OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. 307 

mission which high spiritual excellence always com- 
mands with minds conscious of their own inferiority 
— in all these particulars, every man, however much 
he may affect an entire individuality of opinion, is 
inevitably, and far more perhaps than he is aware, 
governed by tradition and dependent on authority. 
Our spiritual life is moulded and limited by condi- 
tions over which the will has no power, inasmuch as 
they belong to that vast sovereignty of influences 
and impressions inherited from the past, to which 
we are subjected from our birth, and unconsciously 
yield obedience. 

But again there are bounds to this dependence, 
which it is important to mark, not only because they 
legitimate it to the extent that it must exist, but be- 
cause they are continually narrowing it with the 
development of the moral and mental faculties. 
These bounds are denned by every man's interior 
sense of truth and right. This sense is our only 
sure guide, so far as it will take us. By it we are 
finally determined to the acceptance of Christ him- 
self and his prophetic predecessors — and to the reli- 
gious study of the writings produced under their 
influence. By this same sense too, as an indirect 
criterion, we judge of the title of many things to 
our safe confidence, where they are not, and cannot 
be, subjects of direct knowledge and personal con- 
viction. If we find that the influence of these 
secondary opinions, accepted provisionally on the 
warrant of others, is in harmony with our funda- 
mental feeling of what is right, and helps to unfold 
and strengthen what is good and noble within us-— 



308 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

we may rest on them without danger, till further 
growth of reason and ampler means of knowledge 
shall enable us to master the whole intellectual pro- 
cess for ourselves. If the effect be of an opposite 
kind — if it disturb our moral convictions — if it ex- 
cite and encourage our meaner propensities — if it 
indispose us to duty, and turn away our hearts from 
our fellow-creatures and from God — though we 
should be wholly unable to meet logically the so- 
phistries by which such opinions are enforced, we 
may nevertheless unhesitatingly reject them as false ; 
for the argument in the conscience will suffice for 
their confutation. In this highest of all human 
functions — the exercise of moral responsibility — ■ 
man is and must be, under every religious system,, 
dependent on his individual judgment alone for his 
belief and conduct. Here he is exempt from the 
claims of tradition, and bound to set himself above 
all external authority. "With the progress of moral 
and mental culture, self-reliance and provisional 
submission to authority assume a different relation 
towards each other. As men know more and ac- 
quire a richer spiritual experience, they take less on 
trust, and form a more immediate judgment of re- 
ligious truth. We outgrow by degrees the need of 
that dependence on others, which was at first indis- 
pensable, and which may still be required for the 
less-advanced of the human race. Till we can go 
alone, we must lean on the hand of a guide. This 
is an obvious limitation of the prerogative of self- 
reliance and the right of private judgment. 

For ages to come, possibly for ever, authority 



GROUNDS OF SPIRITUAL AUTHORITY. 309 

under some modification may continue to operate in 
this life as a determining influence in the formation 
of those states of mind, where our hopes and our 
consolations and all our incentives to virtue have 
their securest abode. The intuitions of the wise will 
ever shed their mysterious light on the dark road of 
human destiny. The voice of the prophet will ever 
exercise a religious sway over the believing heart. 
Such are ' the fathers of our flesh' who conduct us 
in our passage to the other world ; and because they 
speak to us in words which inspire our trust, of 
heaven and heavenly things — we duly give them 
reverence. Only in times to come, these may no 
longer be the consecrated priest, the accredited 
teacher, the recognised guide — men honoured and 
useful in their day, and still destined in many situa- 
tions to dispense influerices of the purest good — but 
all gifted spirits of every class, who conceive high 
thoughts and clothe them in words of searching 
power, and breathe heaven's inspiration into the 
human heart. Such will become priests and pro- 
phets for the future generations of mankind. All 
genuine ministries — all that give evidence of true 
apostolic descent — subserve the one only purpose 
of subjecting men to the Father of spirits, that 
they may live. It is the highest wisdom so far only 
to depend on external authority, as we feel that it 
helps us upward to God, and gives us inward free- 
dom in Him. How to combine and harmonise in 
the social fabric these two elements of liberty and 
authority, is the great problem that lies beneath all 
the local and more superficial questions that now 



310 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

agitate the civilised world. Men are everywhere 
craving a freer surrender of their hearts and lives 
to the power of truth and the law of their own 
minds, in subjection to God alone. Priests and des- 
pots oppose this just demand of the awakening soul ; 
but priests and despots cannot rule the world for 
ever. Such is the struggle through which vast por- 
tions of the human family must pass, ere they can 
appropriate the spiritual heritage which is their due. 
God grant a successful issue, and — if possible — a 
a bloodless transition ! 



XII 



THE CHANGE OF DEATH. 
Job, xiv. 14. 

" All the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change 
come.'' 

Traditional usage and customary modes of 
speech in which conviction and feeling have little 
share, so beset our human life with shows and forms 
on every side, that it is very difficult to discern the 
true character of the realities which encompass us. 
With what solemnities have we invested the event of 
Death ! Yet how few comprehend its deep signifi- 
cance ! And how slight is the impression which it 
leaves on the impetuous course of our selfish inter- 
ests and vanities ! Let us strip it, if we can, of the 
disguise which society has thrown around it, and 
contemplate it with simple truthfulness as a fact. It 
is the greatest and least understood of all the changes 
which await us. "We may look at Death from the 
material or from the spiritual point of view. We 
may survey it from our position on earth, as the 
last link in a chain of visible phenomena — or from 
the higher elevation of faith, as the medium of tran- 
sition to a new form of existence. Both these points 



312 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

of view must be embraced, to obtain a full under- 
standing of Death. 

Let us first consider the several aspects which it 
presents to us, when regarded exclusively as the ter- 
mination of the present state of things. Death, then, 
is a prepared, inevitable, necessary event. It has its 
appointed time. It is a change that must come. 
The seed of it is silently ripening in our constitution 
from the first. The physiologist could show us, that 
all the changes which take place in the human sys- 
tem from the hour of conception and birth, lead by 
unavoidable sequence to the last result of Death. 
Birth and Death have an indissoluble correlation : — 
they pre-suppose each other. A chain of invincible 
necessity connects these two extremes of our mortal 
life. Death has passed by irrevocable decree on all 
men. It is a sure consequence of the actual consti- 
tution of humanity. 

The higher we ascend in the scale of terrestrial 
being, the more certain, speedy and calculable the 
event of final dissolution becomes. Revolutions in 
the great inorganic masses of the universe — the birth 
and death of a planet or of some geological era of 
coexistent life — occur only at vast intervals of time, 
and depend on laws which science has hitherto been 
unable to evolve. The great physical features of 
our globe bear on them a certain stamp of perpe- 
tuity. The mountains seem to have eternity writ- 
ten on their hoary brows. The prophet calls them 
everlasting. Next in order of longevity come cer- 
tain products of the vegetable world. Oaks yet sur- 
vive in our ancient woods, which tradition associates 



THE CHANGE OF DEATH. 313 

with some incident in the history of our Norman or 
Plantagenet kings. Yews stiil cast their funereal 
shade on the very spot, where ages ago they probably 
witnessed the mystic rites of Druidic superstition. - * 
Seeds that fell from the ripened ear on the banks of 
the Nile — long, it may be, ere Moses was deposited 
an unconscious babe among its sheltering reeds — if 
now committed to the soil, shoot up and wave their 
triple heads in our own fields — a wondrous instance 
of indestructible vitality. With the introduction of 
the higher powers of locomotion, sense, conscious- 
ness and intelligence, the term of duration is greatly 
diminished. The average of human years, even 
when the dangers of infancy and youth have been 
escaped, does not perhaps much exceed half a cen- 
tury. 

In spite of the belief so widely diffused in the 
ancient world, that Death was the penalty of some 
early transgression, and that our first parents were 
destined to live for ever — that last change, viewed 
in relation to the present world, is a very merciful 
appointment. The removal of the individual is in- 
dispensable to the progress of the species. There 
would be no room for the expansion of our children's 
activity, if we did not at length retire and give way 
to them. Nor is this simply rendered necessary by 

* ' I think we cannot avoid the conclusion, that many of the spe- 
cimens of the yew which still survive, must have been planted long- 
before the first promulgation of Christianity. Nay, some yews still 
standing are probably above 3,000 years old.' — ' On the Longevity of 
the Yew, t£c.' By the late J. E. Bowman, Esq., F. L. S., commu- 
nicated to Loudon's Magazine of Natural History, Vol. i., N. S., 
p. 28. 



314 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

the conditions of space and physical existence. We 
become in time morally disqualified for the new 
functions which the progress of events brings along 
with it. To fill our place and perform our part in 
the great procession of the ages, we put on the opin- 
ions and habitudes and adopt the insignia of the 
period to which we belong. Our individual being 
becomes incrusted, as it were, with the associations 
and even with the prejudices of our own time. Yet 
without such investment the spiritual nature would 
be cut off from all contact and intercourse with the 
men and things immediately around it. It thus 
forms an effectual link between the past and the fu- 
ture. By beliefs and sentiments partial and defec- 
tive in themselves, but of great relative value, it is 
fastened and rivetted to its appointed place in the 
moral machinery of the world. This machinery 
itself undergoes a constant change. Through a plas- 
tic vitality wrought into it by God, it unwinds and 
unfolds itself from day to day, to meet new exi- 
gencies and bring a larger range of objects within 
its operation. While our powers continue active, we 
should strive to grow with the times, and transfer 
our sympathies to the new interests that are per- 
petually arising. But this is only possible within 
certain limits. Early associations imprint them- 
selves indelibly on the mind. Convictions that were 
in harmony with the narrower circle of men's ideas 
when we were young — must be themselves trans- 
formed by the ejection of old elements and the ad- 
mission of new, to be any longer applicable to the 
altered conditions of the great problems which still 



THE CHANGE OF DEATH. 



315 



remain for the solution of mankind. Old men are 
incapable of so entire a change. Perhaps physical 
causes may prevent it. With the decline of activity 
and the growing obtuseness of the senses, observa- 
tion and comparison of outward phenomena become 
less easy ; and without a vivid impression of new 
facts, the formation of new opinions is impossible. 
The tenacity with which earlier acquirements are 
grasped and the large space which they occupy in 
the mind, when they become fixed and petrified un- 
der the hardening action of length of years — hinder 
the accumulation of new elements of thought and 
the moulding of older materials into another form. 
When men outlive their interests and affections in 
this world, and merely prolong a physical existence 
in another generation, they have a lonely and deso- 
late look, and remind us of the solitary leaf of a 
former summer, which may sometimes be seen, sere 
and wrinkled, quivering forlorn and ready to drop 
at every breath of wind, amidst the fresh budding 
life of a new spring. 

Death is not only a necessity that must occur 
after a certain term, but a casualty dependent on a 
thousand small events that may happen at any mo- 
ment. Its possibility and its constant proximity are 
feelings that enter into all our contemplations of 
Death. Life is beset with perils at every turn : and 
Death differs in one respect from every other chance 
to which we are exposed. When the blow is once 
struck, the effect is remediless. Death puts us for 
ever beyond the reach of all the resources of human 
art. There are varieties, too, in what may be called 



316 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY . 

the natural term of human years. Some constitu- 
tions are exhausted and come to an inevitable disso- 
lution at an earlier age than others. So again local- 
ities and employments differ in their effect on the 
duration of life. Longevity distinguishes particular 
families and particular races. Purer manners and 
more healthful habits might possibly increase the 
average length of years, and even extend it to a 
century. But though by our follies and our vices 
we may accelerate the approach of Death, we can- 
not indefinitely postpone it. Every thing in man 
himself, and in the world about him, proves that 
the perpetuation of our individual existence on earth 
is an impossibility. The last change must come. 
It is gradually but unerringly announced to us, and 
we are warned to prepare. The signs of bloom and 
maturity pass imperceptibly away. The limbs con- 
tract and bend. The step loses its elasticity, and 
the head its erectness. The voice becomes feeble 
and tremulous : and a few hairs, white and thin, re- 
place the shining tresses that hung on the maiden's 
delicate neck, and the flowing locks that once waved 
over the brawny shoulders of manhood. Thus, when 
accident and disease are averted, the event does not 
come upon us as a shock, but we calmly anticipate 
the final disappearance of the form which has alrea- 
dy lost its pristine fullness and glow of life, in the 
dissolving shade of Death. And these things come 
with gentle and timely admonition, to remind us, 
that our work is done, and that the hour will soon 
strike for our retirement to endless rest. 

Limiting our view to the visible phenomena of 



THE CHANGE OF DEATH. 



31T 



present scenes, there is a total failure of all ground 
of inference from any cognizable fact — as to the pos- 
sible sequel of Death. All human facts, With the 
conclusions deducible from them — except such as 
are contained in our perpetual consciousness — be- 
long to the past alone. Birth indeed is a mystery, 
but it is not so entirely inexplicable as Death. Of 
birth we know some of the antecedents, and all the 
more important consequents. Of Death we know 
the antecedents alone. All that is properly creative 
— the energy present at the generative point of time, 
when life and sense and intellect begin to unfold 
their mysterious germs — this we cannot explain, be- 
cause it brings us into direct contact with the un- 
searchable power of God. But we do know the 
outward conditions of birth and of the subsequent 
evolution of the powers which it puts in action. 
From our knowledge of the nature and combination 
of these conditions, we can in some measure account 
for much that is peculiar and characteristic in the 
life of the individual. Human lineage is spread 
out before us in the past. We can sometimes dis- 
cover the seeds of genius in the temperament of pa- 
rents and the hereditary bias of a race. History in 
its great facts is a certainty. Its principles are 
known ; its laws can be stated ; its consequences 
may be educed. But all this ceases at Death. Here 
absolute ignorance awaits us. 'They were, and 
they are not,' is the utmost that the light of science 
enables us to affirm of our departed friends. The 
future is a vast, impenetrable unknown, where con- 



318 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

jecture, analogy, hope alone enable us to shape out 
a few dim, uncertain forms of possible truth. 

"What then are the practical results for life and 
opinion, deducible from this aspect of the change of 
Death ? How will the wise man contemplate it ? — 
He will learn to anticipate with tranquillity an event 
which he sees is inevitable. He will adopt the sen- 
timent of the heathen poet, that ' whatever cannot 
be averted, becomes more endurable by patience.' * 
He will exercise submission and fortitude in the face 
of approaching certainty. Prudence will dictate 
the avoidance of all unnecessary risks : though this 
consideration, even where all distinct hope of a fu- 
ture after death is wanting, may be, as it often has 
been, overborne by stronger impulses and more 
generous motives. He will study the preservation 
of his health and his strength, of his outward senses 
and his intellectual faculties — under the feeling that 
these are blessings which must soon pass away. He 
will endeavour to divest Death of all unreal terrors, 
and encounter that last enemy with the calm and 
cheerful spirit which some irreligious philosophers 
have been able to display, when they were already 
on the brink of the grave. His predominant feeling 
will be — and he will try to reconcile himself to it — 
that nothing is known of the state into which he 
is about to pass — whether his personal conscious- 
ness will survive or perish — and that at the utmost 
a renovation of his individual existence is not im- 
possible. Beyond this point the philosophy of the 

* " . . . . levius fit patentia 
Quicquid corrigere est nefas. — Hor. Carm. i. 24. 



THE CHANGE OF DEATH. 



319 



world — simple naturalism — cannot go. It accepts 
the actual world, as a final, completed fact — only to 
be interpreted by laws contained within itself, and 
an analogy that never transcends the limits of their 
visible operation. Does this view of life, with all 
the aid which reason and philosophy can bring to 
its support — suffice for the inward contentment of 
your spirit? Does it yield the pure and perfect 
peace which you feel you want, in the consciousness 
of nature's decline, and when the sorrow of bereave- 
ment lies heavy on your heart ? 

Let us turn, then, to another — the spiritual — 
view of this subject. Let us keep the same phenom- 
ena before us, but place them in a different light. 
We look now on the actual world, not as an ultimate 
fact, but as itself only the partial expression of a 
still higher fact — a Supreme Intelligence — a Divine 
Mind. New elements are thus brought into the 
question, and wider premises supplied for drawing 
our conclusions. When Mind is assumed as the 
fundamental reality of all things, we are justified in 
taking as a ground for our reasoning, those attributes 
of rectitude and benevolence, which are laws neces- 
sarily resulting from the nature of mind, and with- 
out which it could not operate or even exist. Such 
attributes in an Infinite Mind, exempt from all pos- 
sible causes of error or disturbance, must be abso- 
lutely perfect. — What a new aspect Death assumes, 
when viewed in reference to the government of such 
a Being — as a part of the system which He has con- 
stituted for the spiritual nurture and discipline of 
the soul ! We no more behold it now in the cold 



320 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

contracted gloom of earth, but in the broad and 
genial light cast upon it from a higher sphere. We 
have secured ground and raised ourselves to a point 
of view, which the mere contemplation of external 
phenomena could never furnish. Setting out from 
spiritual facts of which our own consciousness is the 
witness, and which are reflected back upon it with 
redoubled strength and clearness from the great em- 
bodiment of them in the word and work and person 
of Christ — we find a solid basis for trust in the infi- 
nite wisdom and infinite love of the Sovereign Mind. 
Mind is the only foundation for trust. "We cannot 
put confidence in mere law. We cannot rely on 
a simple process. Law and process awaken sym- 
pathy and inspire faith, only as indications of the 
living Spirit from which they emanate. 

Conceive of the universe, then — in accordance 
with the fundamental truth of Christianity — as a 
vast communion of minds, embraced and governed 
by One above all, that is absolutely perfect. Fully 
realise to yourself this idea. You will find it preg- 
nant with consolation and support, in view of every 
change that can overtake the life of individual man. 
Infinite wisdom and infinite love ! Are these indeed 
the principles which guide the destinies of crea- 
tion ? If you once accept the doctrine of a God, the 
conclusion is inevitable. Take it, then, without dis- 
trust, and admit all the comfort which it bears along 
with it, into your inmost soul. If you are but true 
to the inward law of your being, the Father will be- 
stow on you in death, as in life, all the good which 
is compatible with the highest happiness of his whole 



THE CHANGE OP DEATH. 



321 



creation. More, as a devoted and affectionate child, 
you cannot desire. Into His hands you commit 
yourself in the last great crisis of your mortal exist- 
ence. He lias never once forsaken you in the 
changes of life. He will not forsake you now. This 
is our broadest, surest ground of trust — the perfect 
wisdom and goodness of God. It is the ground on 
which we feel more disposed to rely, the longer we 
live : so as to resolve all our faith at last into the 
single principle of implicit self-surrender to the 
Father's will. 

"When such a faith has penetrated the soul, and 
become a vital, actuating principle throughout the 
character — it quickens the spiritual vision, and gives 
force and significance to minor considerations which 
viewed by themselves might each separately have 
little weight, but embraced as parts of an organic 
whole, all intimately related to the central belief, 
produce a deep and self-consistent impression. Con- 
sider in this view that law of progress and develop- 
ment which pervades the visible universe. Why 
should this be excluded from the region of mind ? 
It will be said, perhaps, that the development which 
we can trace on a retrospect of the past changes of 
our planet, has resulted from the succession of new 
and distinct orders of being, and not from the con- 
tinuous transition of the same order — still less of the 
separate members of that order — into higher forms : 
and that with regard to man, while the species sur- 
veyed through long periods of time, seem to be 
steadily on the advance, the individual does his 
work, and perishes. But it is the peculiar relation 
15 



322 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

of the individual to the species which makes the great 
and important difference in the case of man. In 
him first we find the species progressive. If inferior 
species have undergone any improvement with the 
march of civilisation, it is due entirely to his influ- 
ence. They only reflect in their physical condition, 
the progression of his intelligence. But here is the 
singularity to be noticed. The life of individual 
men as it exists on earth — even when all accident 
is averted, and external circumstances allow its am- 
plest development, and it is extended to its longest 
term — never looks like a completed whole. It only 
contributes its quota to the ever-enlarging idea of 
the species. Collective humanity at any one period 
of its existence, is no adequate expression of the ul- 
timate tendencies of the race. Whereas, among 
the lower animals, while the species is stationary, 
the individuals embraced in it at a particular time, 
realise completely the specific type. We have thus 
in_ mankind the curious example of a whole con- 
stantly tending towards perfection, while the several 
parts of which it is made up, are each in itself im- 
perfect, and fall below the idea which they collec- 
tively suggest. The exceptional character of man's 
condition on earth, presents a phenomenon best ex- 
plicable — to those at least who believe in a God — on 
the supposition, that he is here only in the infancy 
of an immortal existence. 

What is the experience of the most virtuous and 
richly endowed mind at the close of the most suc- 
cessful career ? It is conscious of plans unaccom- 
plished, of resources undeveloped, of energies unex- 



THE CHANGE OF DEATH. 



323 



hausted, of impulses and aspirations which have 
never reached their term, and to which no term 
seems capable of being assigned. Altogether dis- 
proportionate to the actual conditions of our physical 
existence are the inherent capacities and the out- 
ward and upward stragglings of the captive spirit. 
The short period allowed for the development of the 
human faculties, compared with the richness and 
variety of the fruits they often yield and their con- 
stant promise of powers still latent within — so dif- 
ferent from the vast spaces of time through which 
inferior forms of life have preserved an unaltered 
type of being with no indication of progress — war- 
rants the inference that men may be sufficiently 
ripened during the few short years of their terres- 
trial sojourn, for an ensuing stage of existence, which 
is invisible because it belongs to a higher sphere and 
is inconceivably wonderful and glorious. There is 
much hidden in all men, which requires a transfer- 
ence into new scenes for its complete manifestation. 
Those flashes of marvellous light which sometimes 
break forth under strong excitement from the dull- 
est minds — the profound foresight and sagacity 
which very ordinary men have been known to dis- 
play when motives of unusual force have been ap- 
plied to them — point to the existence of dormant 
faculties which, unless God can be supposed to have 
over-furnished the soul for its appointed field of ac- 
tion, seem only to be awaiting more favourable cir- 
cumstances, to awaken and disclose themselves. 

The notion of the ancients, that Death was a con- 
sequence and penalty of sin, involves an inversion of 



324 -CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



the proper order of ideas, since it sends us to the 
Past for the solution we should seek in the Future : 
but it has its weight as expressing a profound con- 
viction of the human mind, that Death viewed as 
the final extinction of conscious activity, is some- 
thing out of harmony with the natural worth and 
dignity of the soul, and therefore marks a passage, 
either as descent or ascent, from one state of ex- 
istence to another. Then — there are our affections. 
What a light their strength and tenderness throw, 
when purified by deep trust in God, on the possi- 
bilities of that unknown future beyond the grave ! 
For here immortality offers the consolation which 
the best men most strongly need. The purer, and 
kinder and truer the heart, the keener the pang of 
final separation. In all other cases, there is some 
compensation for unavoidable loss. Here — if im- 
mortality be a baseless dream — there is absolutely 
none. In all other cases, the better a man is, the 
more he carries a consolation in his own breast. 
Here, the better he is, the deeper and more incur- 
able is his wound. Here only, in the chill deso- 
lation of unbelief, the best would find it the most 
difficult to say from the heart, 6 Thy will be done.' 

The failure of all positive knowledge — all proof 
founded on fact — respecting the Future, is of no 
importance in the view which Religion opens before 
us. It could only be so, on the assumption, that 
the next life was a mere prolongation of the present, 
physically as well as spiritually ; since physical phe- 
nomena might be expected to yield physical evi- 
dence. On our present ground, such failure merely 



THE CHANGE OF DEATH. 



325 



indicates that the transition is into a spiritual world, 
and involves a continuance of that invisible life ex- 
isting wholly within the mind, which outward sense 
cannot apprehend and on which outward facts have 
no necessary bearing. Even were the Future con- 
ceivable by us here, a fuller revelation of it might 
only overwhelm our faculties and interfere with the 
quiet and humble discharge of present duties. Our 
business is to hope and trust and prepare. Faith 
not science is the discipline of the soul for the hea- 
venly world. Hence the testimony of the highest 
consciousness and the purest spiritual experience has 
a value above every other kind of evidence on this 
subject. The solemn declarations of those who have 
lived in habitual intimacy with God, and exercised 
their spiritual vision continually on the vital rela- 
tions between their souls and Him — are here of ines- 
timable moment, and far outweigh any deductions of 
science from outward phenomena. For they, like 
Christ, according to their measure of insight, c speak 
that they do know, and testify that they have seen.' 
Theirs is, in a spiritual sense, belief founded on ex- 
perience. 

Hence the authority which on this awful subject, 
attaches "to the words of Christ. His was a life 
wholly united wu'th God. The Spirit of the Father 
filled its veins and vibrated in every fibre. The 
power of immortality pervaded its inmost depths, 
and breathed forth in every word and act. Christ 
wins our hearts and commands our faith as the 
spiritual Ideal of our nature ; and Humanity as 
expressed and interpreted by him, is evidently but 



326 CHKISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

a wayfarer on earth, and belongs by its capacities 
and affections to a state which is yet to come. This 
silent, implicit, unceasing witness to a higher life, 
emanating from the person and work of Christ and 
investing them with the light of another world, is to 
some minds — I confess it is to mine — a clearer indi- 
cation of immortality and carries with it a deeper 
conviction, than the single fact of his resurrection, 
however powerful the evidence on which it rests. 
The resurrection of Jesus is a fact which stands by 
itself, and offers no points of parallel and compari- 
son with our own spiritual condition. It brings 
with it no testimonies and no assurances that we can 
personally realise. We know in consequence of it 
no more of the circumstances of the invisible world, 
that we knew before. Its certainty too can never 
exceed the highest attestation possible to an histori- 
cal event. It does not come home to us like a fact 
of consciousness. Its chief value is as an outward 
and visible exponent of the deeper faith that lies en- 
shrined in the recesses of every human spirit. Ac- 
cording to this view, it is not the resurrection which 
produces a belief in immortality, but the belief in 
immortality which renders credible a resurrection. 
Far different is the effect of Christ's living person- 
ality on our hearts. With perfect confidence, we 
feel that we could live and die with him. The ap- 
propriation of his spirit is the warrant of our eternal 
salvation. One instructive lesson, however, we may 
draw from the evangelical records of his resurrec- 
tion ; — not to indulge our imaginations in vain pic- 
tures of the possible scenes of the future world. We 



THE CHANGE OF DEATH. 



327 



can know nothing of them ; and faith is not strength- 
ened nor virtue aided by gratuitous creations. 
Christ died, and rose again, and went to heaven. 
Such is the sum total of the information conveyed 
to us : and it suffices for our fullest trust. We 
know, that we shall pass through death into another 
and more glorious state of being, and that our de- 
parted friends have gone thither before us. In this 
simple but sublime assurance let us rest content. 
Let trust in God be our great support ; and as we 
descend into the shade which hovers on the verge of 
terrestrial things, let memory melt into hope, and 
the reflected hues of our best and happiest hours on 
earth mingle in one bright bow of peace over the 
solemn passage which separates time from eternity, 



XX. 



RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 

(Delivered December 29th, 1850.) 

Psalm, xlviii. 12, 13. 
" Walk about Zion, and go round about her : tell the towers 
thereof. 

" Mark ye well her bulwarks, consider her palaces : that ye may 
tell it to the generation following.'' 

In a few days we shall complete the first half of 
the nineteenth century ; and we cannot bid farewell 
to so large a portion of human history without deep 
and earnest thought. The Past that Tve are leaving, 
connects itself with the Future which is to come ; 
and while the impression lasts, we seem conscious 
of our movement on the mighty stream of ages. 
Many are now living — some may be with us to-day 
— whose hands will write 1900 ere they die, and 
who are destined to live into the century that will 
terminate the second thousand of years from the 
commencement of our Christian civilisation. It is 
a solemn position that we now occupy — in the very 
middle of a century. A more fitting occasion could 
not offer for retrospect and anticipation. 

The present century is one of the most remark- 
able in the annals of mankind, and will doubtless 



RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 



329 



be classed by future historians with those eras which 
have exercised the most powerful influence on the 
condition and destinies of our race : — the diffusion 
of arts and literature and a common medium of in- 
tellectual intercourse by Greek and Roman arms ; — 
the promulgation of Christianity ; — the immigration 
of Teutonic and Slavonic races into western Europe ; 
— the Reformation with its attendant agencies ; — if 
indeed that event be not rather the proper com- 
mencement of our actual state, and all that has hap- 
pened subsequent to it, one great progressive change 
in which we are still involved, and whose final issue 
it baffles human sagacity to conjecture. One broad 
general feature characterises the civilisation of this 
last period, and distinguishes it from every preced- 
ing one — the growing importance of the popular 
element in Society, and the assumption by the asso- 
ciated energies of vast masses of men, of that direct- 
ing influence in human affairs, which was once ex- 
clusively exercised by a few commanding intellects. 
This tendency is daily becoming more conspicuous. 
It is one of the signs of the age ; and its deep sig- 
nificance all who reflect on it, must perceive. — Let 
us now take a rapid survey of the principal events 
that have contributed to social amelioration and in- 
dicate mental progress, during the fifty years which 
are on the point of their completion. 

The nineteenth century opened amidst the storms 
of a revolutionary war which exposed this country 
to the combined hostility of Europe, organised and 
wielded by the extraordinary man who had bound 
the writhings of a frenzied liberty by his despotic 
15* 



330 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



spell, and whose name many of us are old enough 
to remember as a word of terror at our domestic 
hearths. Ambition grew drunk with success, and 
precipitated its own downfall. A general pacifica- 
tion of Europe was the immediate result ; and thou- 
sands believed, they had reached the happy close of 
an age of convulsion, wmich would be signalised by 
the restoration of order and law, and the establish- 
ment throughout Europe of constitutional govern- 
ment and a wise freedom. This is not the place to 
remark, how wofully such expectations have been 
disappointed, and how want of faith on the part of 
sovereigns to their subjects, has dispersed the ele- 
ments of future storms. Our attention is rather 
called to the more fortunate direction of events in 
our own island. During the period of comparative 
tranquillity which followed the termination of the 
war, the arts of peace revived — intercourse between 
England and the continent was resumed — men of 
different countries freely exchanged their ideas — 
education was extended — science and learning were 
prosecuted with vigour, and industry in all its 
branches experienced an immense development. 
And now set in among ourselves that course of wise 
and timely reformation, which so often in our his- 
tory — some would say, by a happy accident — some, 
through the conservative instinct and quiet energy 
of our national character — some, and more correctly, 
by the good providence of God — has interposed to 
ward off the convulsive change and violent disor- 
ganisation which remedy deferred and accumulated 
abuse must have inevitably brought on. 



RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 331 



We owe much to the mixture of elements in our 
legislature. If the preponderance of the aristocratic 
sometimes obstructs and delays measures beyond 
the point which the ardent and sanguine have fixed 
as the utmost limit of their patient endurance, it se- 
cures to every change projected the completest in- 
vestigation before it is introduced, and gives strength 
and solidity to the final result. Between the extreme 
sections of political opinion — represented, on one 
hand, by those who uphold every thing as it exists 
in Church and State and only yield at last to irre- 
sistible necessity, and on the other by those who are 
imbued with the spirit of innovation and would im- 
mediately re-construct the social fabric to meet their 
theoretic ideas — there has ever existed a large and 
powerful middle party, adorned by our noblest his- 
torical names and associated with the remembrance 
of all our great constitutional struggles, which owns 
the claims at once of progress and conservatism — - 
which loves and honours the Past, yet not as a dead 
finality, but the living womb of new developments 
and a richer Future. To the exertions of this party 
we are indebted for most of those measures during 
the last half century, on which the friends of hu- 
manity now look back with the greatest satisfaction. 
Upright and patriotic men have ever been found in 
all the divisions of party, whose virtues and services 
must not be forgotten :« but it is characteristic of 
England and ominous of its calm and steady pro- 
gress in future years, that the changes through which, 
we have passed, have not hitherto been effected by 
men of extreme opinions on either side, but directly 



332 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

or indirectly through the moral force of the great in- 
termediate party, which seems best to embody and 
express the indwelling genius of our constitution. 

At the commencement of this century, Slavery 
was a legal institution and the Slave-trade a recog- 
nised traffic in the British dominions : industry was 
fettered by restrictions and perverted by monopo- 
lies : Protestant Dissenters and Catholics were 
treated as aliens to the constitution, shut out from 
its privileges and distinctions, and only sheltered 
from persecution by a meagre toleration : our legis- 
lature expressed almost exclusively the feelings and 
interests of the aristocratic class, who commanded 
its votes, and filled or disposed of numbers of its 
seats as their private property ; while the vast amount 
of talent and energy and public spirit nursed in the 
bosom of trade and commerce, found in it no fitting 
and adequate representation. These were galling 
evils against which the popular mind, as it grew in 
conscious power and intelligence, chafed and fretted, 
and might have broken out in destructive rebellion, 
had not the due remedy come in time, and one after 
another of the possible occasions of revolution been 
taken away. And the change was not brought to 
pass by violence. The moderate party mediating 
between extreme tendencies, by the energetic exer- 
cise of constitutional powers, without shedding one 
drop of human blood, peacefully accomplished the 
needful transition. By that party, the Slave-trade 
and Slavery itself were abolished ; the Protestant 
Dissenters were invested with their full political 
rights — the Established Church simply retaining 



RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 



333 



under the control of the State, its ancient revenues 
and dignities and its parliamentary representation ; 
—the Legislature was reformed and purified, and a 
large popular element infused into its composition. 
The disabilities of the Catholics were not indeed re- 
moved, nor was commerce liberated from its heaviest 
fetters, by the immediate act of the same party ; yet 
such a policy became practicable, in consequence of 
preparations which they had made, through the in- 
fluence of principles which they had diffused, or by 
instrumentalities which their reforms had called into 
existence : and it was their cordial support which 
carried those measures into effect, when introduced 
by their political opponents. Such, on the whole, is 
the gratifying retrospect of the last half century. It 
bears witness to repeated efforts in the direction of 
civil, religious and industrial freedom, and to the 
growing power and extension of just and humane 
principles. The whole period too has been marked 
by a rapid dissemination of knowledge and intelli- 
gence among the mass of the people — by some abate- 
ment of political and sectarian antipathies — by the 
constant increase of schools and the adoption of more 
enlightened methods of instruction — by exertions to 
improve the social and sanitary condition of the 
lower classes — and by the rise of a new and most 
influential form of literature — without precedent in 
former times — popular in its origin, its aim and its 
effects. 

Has the result corresponded to the effort ? Look- 
ing forward into the next half century, do we fore- 
see, that the more unfettered powers and ampler 



334 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

resources of good delivered to us from the Past, will 
be counterbalanced by new dangers and heavier re- 
sponsibilities, and by some agencies of evil that were 
unknown in ruder and less enlightened times ? Good 
and evil are inextricably intermingled in this life ; 
and it is the condition of any great and rapid devel- 
opment of the means and instruments of good, to 
engender along with them some fresh and more ac- 
tive seeds of evil. A considerable interval must 
usually elapse before new principles yield their natu- 
ral fruit. Ages passed ere Christianity met with a 
congenial element and suitable materials, and could 
display its genuine and proper energy. During the 
first centuries of its existence, it operated with a de- 
structive force on the old civilisation, and some 
noble intellects strenuously resisted it as a principle 
of disorganisation and decay. It must not, therefore, 
be concluded, that progress has reached its limits, or 
come to a stand, because the effect of some changes 
which it cost our predecessors immense efforts and 
sacrifices to produce, has not hitherto fulfilled expec- 
tation, but left many evils to be encountered among 
their immediate results. We should rather find in 
these things an incentive to deeper thoughtfulness 
and a wiser energy. 

In many of the circumstances which at a first 
glance we should naturally single out as peculiarly 
indicative of the superior civilisation of the nine- 
teenth century, we discern on a closer inspection 
some qualifying disadvantage, some counterbalancing 
evil, which — now that the achievement is over and 
we are waiting for the result — forces itself daily in 



RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 



335 



broader and distincter characters on our view, as a 
part of the coming trial and discipline of the next 
fifty years. — We speak, for example, with pride and 
enthusiasm of the wonderful progress of modern 
science : and if the observation be limited to those 
departments which embrace the laws and projDerties 
of matter, and admit the exact measurement and 
calculation of the mathematics, no language can 
mark in too decided terms our unquestionable supe- 
rior^. Here the successes and discoveries of the 
moderns are truly marvellous. Nature relinquishes 
the contest with man, and seems on the point of 
yielding up her most hidden secrets and submitting 
her subtlest agencies to his control. But in inqui- 
ries which have man himself for their object — the 
laws of his mental organisation, the modes of his 
culture and government, and the whole range of his 
social relations — it cannot be affirmed, that our ad- 
vance has been at all proportionate, or that there is 
by any means that difference between ourselves and 
the ancients, which the distance of time separating 
us, would have rendered probable. If we turn to 
what is called the higher philosophy, we find our- 
selves in few directions much advanced beyond the 
point which men had reached ages ago. The great 
intellects of the Past still maintain their ascendancy, 
and share the empire of modern opinion between 
them. In theology, notwithstanding that we live in 
the light of Christianity, we are still tied up in nar- 
row systems, spell-bound by words and phrases, pre- 
judiced, bigoted, and averse from thorough and fun- 
damental search after truth. Among the educated 



336 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



classes of this country, I fear it must be added, that 
there is now less manly freedom of mind, less open- 
ness to conviction, and a more slavish dread of pub- 
lic opinion, than at the same period in the last cen- 
tury. In almost every path of metaphysical specu- 
lation, in nearly all the higher questions of ethical 
science, even in the latest theories of social organisa- 
tion, we have been anticipated by the ancient schools.* 
On subjects of the utmost importance to human well- 
being and happiness, we are yet without clear first 
principles and in the very rudiments of knowledge. 
Perhaps political economy is the only branch of 
moral investigation that approaches in its definitions 
and conclusions to scientific exactness, and indicates 
a transition from the vagueness of ancient methods 
to the precision required by modern intellect. The 
strongest tendencies of the age are unfavourable to 
habits of abstract thought and pure reasoning. The 
unparalleled success which has crowned our re- 
searches into the physical world, with immediate 
opportunity for endless practical application, cap- 
tivates the popular judgment with obvious evi- 
dence of positive usefulness, and draws away atten- 
tion from those dimmer realms of mind where prob- 
lems of unspeakable moment are still awaiting their 
solution. Our science, therefore, wonderful and glo- 

* Hemsterhuis, profoundly versed in the philosophy of antiquity, 
thought the moderns had struck out nothing new. ' In Metaphysics 
quae vera certaque sint, et in quibus firme consistere possis, apud veteres 
se reperisse omnia dicebat — ubique cum admiratione quadam depre- 
hendens permulta, quae aetatis nostrse vanitas audet ut reeens inventa 
jactare.' — D. Ruhnkenii Elog. Tib. Hemsierhus, p. 14. 



RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 



337 



rious as it is, has yet its dark side. It overshadows, 
and almost blinds us to, wide fields of human thought, 
where great minds once gathered, as great minds, 
we trust, will hereafter gather, the rarest fruits of 
spiritual wisdom. 

In the popular communication and vast diffusion 
of knowledge, we have another prominent feature of 
our time — ominous of good, but not without its qua- 
lification. What is gained in breadth, is sometimes 
lost in depth. Too many objects are crowded at 
once upon the mind. Rest and leisure are not left 
for concentrated thought. Practical results are too 
promptly demanded. Inquiry is not prolonged with 
sufficient patience and continuity; and the conclu- 
sion is more prized for its susceptibility of imme- 
diate application, than for its warrant of enduring 
value. Authors dare not reckon on close and sus- 
tained attention in the generality of their readers. 
The public insist on entertainment, and will be in- 
structed without trouble. Knowledge is brought up 
to them, and made easy of comprehension. They 
have no difficulty in finding where it lies, and can 
appropriate without any great effort of thought, so 
much of it as they need for the ordinary intercourse 
of society. "There is much that is excellent in all 
this ; but, unless counteracted by some other influ- 
ence, its tendency is to produce a general level of 
intellect. Old persons have remarked a decline of 
originality of character since their younger days. 
There are fewer than formerly without some opinion 
derived from newspapers and reviews and popular 
summaries of information — without something to 



338 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

say on the many topics that are now discussed 
among men ; but perhaps there are fewer still who 
have laboriously collected knowledge for themselves, 
and wrought out of native materials a judgment 
truly their own. There are amongst us now fewer 
meditative and comprehensive intellects. Fewer 
works are produced of high aim and wide range, 
combining severe thought with deep research. A 
few splendid exceptions it would be easy to specify 
in a Grote, a Macaulay and a Mill ; but I speak of 
general tendency. Our very poetry and fiction are 
reduced in form and lighter in character, floating in 
a serial stream through the pages of a magazine, and 
adapted to the wants and tastes of the numerous 
and increasing class who can only snatch a few mo- 
ments in the hurried intervals of business, for their 
mental culture and gratification. The counterac- 
tion which the age itself might supply, should be 
found in its application of increased stimulus to the 
talent, genius and intellectual vigour of the humbler 
classes, and its infusion of a new life from this source 
into the educated mind of the country. But there is 
danger of this wild growth being absorbed^ in the 
widespread superficiality and exhausted by prema- 
ture and unmeasured production. Spirits of gene- 
rous quality, especially among the poor, our gram- 
mar-schools and universities were originally in- 
tended to receive into their bosom, and train up in 
exact discipline and severe scholarship for the higher 
functions of society. Unhappily they impose con- 
ditions which the noblest will not accept. May we 
live to witness a reform, that will turn them once 



RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 339 

more into their destined channel and make them na- 
tional again ! 

Immense good has resulted to society from the 
increasing preponderance of the industrial over the 
feudal spirit. It is one of those general tendencies 
in which every friend of humanity must rejoice. 
Habits of order and thrift and forethought and the 
love of peace are among its most obvious advan- 
tages. Its working is announced to the very eye in 
the growth of towns and facilities of inter-communi- 
cation, in the decay of the moated manor-house and 
the baronial castle, and the gradual disappearance 
of our ancient forests. But with this change so bene- 
ficial on the whole, a cautious and calculating spirit 
grows up, which takes material interests too promi- 
nently into account — which in its exclusive regard 
for the practical, recoils perhaps too far from the 
proud romance of ancient honour and high-mindecl- 
ness — and, when questions of simple justice and 
humanity present themselves, is too much disposed 
to ask in the first place, what will be the probable 
effect of any movement in their favour, on the worth 
of investments, the return to capital, or the activity 
of trade. I do not say, that such inquiries are im- 
proper, or that a far-sighted benevolence is not 
often involved in them ; but they indicate a spirit 
which may easily become too strong, and should be 
watched with jealousy. 

Kindred tendencies are fostered by the love of 
ease and luxury, and the extreme sensitiveness to 
advantages of social position, which the diffused 
wealth attendant on a high civilisation never fails to 



340 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



produce. The soft and polished citizen of the nine- 
teenth century, shrinks from the thought of toils 
and sacrifices which his hardier and less enlightened 
ancestors would have incurred without hesitation for 
some cherished belief or fancied question of right. 
He will not forsake his own warm hearth and well- 
spread board, to assert some abstract principle which 
has no bearing that he can discern, on the material 
interests of the actual world. Nor does the fashion- 
able religion of the day oppose any effectual check 
to these enervating influences. It has purged off 
the roughness and sternness of past times, and be- 
come effeminate and sentimental. It deals in feel- 
ing and plays with the imagination, but dares not 
appeal to reason and will not throw itself courage- 
ously on first principles. Its teachers are no longer 
disciplined in the exercises of earnest thought and 
fearless inquiry. Vigour and originality of mind 
have ceased to characterize our English theology. 
It subsists on the accumulated fruits of more labori- 
ous generations. It has forsaken the study for the 
platform ; and pulpits that once resounded to the 
homely and vehement but masculine eloquence of 
Latimer or Knox, now overflow with a mawkish ten- 
derness of sensibility. God is made less merciful 
than man. Terror and vengeance are cast into the 
future world. Unbounded compassion and a soft- 
ness that shrinks from any infliction of pain, become 
the ruling law of this. The mind cannot endure the 
presence of suffering, and hastens to relieve it with- 
out investi^atino: its causes. The retributions of 
Providence are intercepted in their effect. More 



RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 



341 



interest is felt, and more active benevolence is ex- 
erted, for the convict in his cell, than for many a 
good and quiet man who keeps within the limits of 
social duty and has never violated the laws of his 
country. The profligate and selfish who throw their 
children on the community, have a larger share in 
our sympathies and are "better provided for by our 
legislation, than the poor and honest father of a 
family who asks help from no one, and by hard 
industry just keeps himself in decent independence. 
Christian brotherhood — that holiest of words — is 
degraded into a cant. All our sensibilities are to 
be expended on the diseased and corrupt members 
of the human family. Pain and misery must not 
be permitted to exist. Man's life must be preserved 
at whatever cost. Every other interest of humanity 
must be sacrificed to inviolable peace. ~No war 
upon freedom, no tyranny over conscience, no tramp- 
ling on the most sacred rights — can authorise an 
armed resistance and weigh against the guilt of any 
possible effusion of blood. Such are doctrines 
widely promulgated at the present day. We may 
congratulate ourselves on the increase of our hu- 
manity ; but let us take care, that we do not drivel 
and dote in expressing it. 

We may notice, I think, as a general result of the 
tendencies now described, a certain decline of heroic 
spirit in the national mind. Enthusiasm evaporates 
in the prevalent disposition to look only at what is 
called the practical side of a question, and in a fan- 
cied superiority to what are deemed the visionary 
crotchets of bye-gone days. Men will risk nothing 



342 CHRISTIAN" ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

that they can help. They will no longer contend 
for words, forgetting that the greatest truths have 
often no visible exponent but words. They have al- 
layed their passions and dismissed their prejudices ; 
it may be questioned, whether they have always put 
principles in their place, and whether sometimes 
they do not mistake selfishness for wisdom. "With 
the habits of mind that now so extensively pervade 
the community — if the grand struggle of the seven- 
teenth century were to come over again, we may 
doubt, whether an equal number of men could be 
found in any class to make the same efforts and sa- 
crifices for their convictions — whether our country- 
gentlemen could furnish an Elliot, a Hampden, or a 
Pym — whether our present race of farmers could 
send forth a yeomanry like the Iron-sides of Crom- 
well — whether Leeds and Manchester now would 
make the same determined stand for a spiritual 
principle, as Hull and Bristol then. It was well for 
our liberties, that the rough and bloody conflict ne- 
cessary for achieving them, came on in the natural 
order of events, before civilisation had made our 
people too polished and too speculative to fight for 
them : and it is unfortunate for other countries, as 
yet in the throes of constitutional development, that 
the culture of art and science has with them antici- 
pated the birth of freedom. 

Secure in our insular position and satisfied with 
our inheritance of freedom, we listen perhaps too 
readily to the counsels of the selfish policy, which 
bids us attend to our own interests and take no part 
in the effort to promote good government and aid 



RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 343 

social progress abroad. But is it possible for any 
one member of the great European family, so com- 
pletely to separate itself from all the rest ? If free- 
dom perishes on the continent, what will become 
of it among ourselves ? What will become of our 
trade ar^d our commerce — even admitting these to 
be the only interests with which our foreign policy 
has any concern — should an absolute despotism es- 
tablish its crushing rule over the whole of . Europe ? 
I am aware of the extreme delicacy of this question 
— and the difficulty of deciding, how far the sym- 
pathies of political relationship should extend, and 
where they should stop. Doubtless, we are right 
in checking the meddlesome and pugnacious pro- 
pensities which have so often heretofore involved 
us in unavailing and ruinous warfare : but there is a 
point where indifference ceases to be sound and even 
pacific policy, and becomes ungenerous and inhu- 
man. We must take care, that the economical doc- 
trine of non-interference does not extinguish in us 
all sympathy for the oppressed, and all enthusiasm 
for the principle of truth and right. 

Every Christian believes, that universal peace, 
cemented by the spirit of brotherhood, is the ulti- 
mate destiny of the human race, and the issue to 
which all true civilisation tends. But hard condi- 
tions are attached by Providence to our choicest 
blessings. "We must not prematurely maim the in_ 
dispensable process, in vainly forestalling the result. 
We must not mistake the distant visions of a pro- 
phetic spirit, for the stern necessities of our actual 
world. The instinct of self-defence is implanted in 



344 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 



us by God. We must distinguish between the arm 
that assails, and the arm that defends, human rights- 
The hosts that would lay waste our civilisation, are 
not to be confounded with those that are embattled 
to preserve and perpetuate it. It is false humanity, 
from the dread of momentary suffering, to prefer the 
slow consuming malady which cherishes the seeds 
of future strife, to the brief agony of conflict which 
may be the necessary preliminary of a safe and last- 
ing peace. There are few incidents in our history, 
on which a generous mind reflects with more satis- 
faction, than Cromwell's noble interposition to shield 
the poor Protestants of the Alps from the persecu- 
tions of the House of Savoy. If the great prince 
who headed our Revolution, has been censured for 
involving England too deeply in continental wars, 
can it be doubted, on a broader view, that the pre- 
servation of civil and religious liberty in Europe, 
depended on the resistance which he helped to make 
effectual against the bigoted and despotic domina- 
tion of France ? In our own days, before our very 
eyes, we have seen two brave and noble-minded na- 
tions — one struggling for its ancient franchises, a 
natural bulwark against barbarism in eastern Europe 
: — the other, in the heart of Germany, a perfect mo- 
del of calm and constitutional opposition to wrong — 
overpowered by force and trampled out of their po- 
litical existence, without one arm stretched forth to 
help them, and only a voice here and there to com- 
passionate and bewail their fall. Such a spectacle 
fills the heart with a profound sadness and almost 
shakes one's faith in the ultimate destinies of hu- 



RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 345 

raanity. Gloomy indeed in the eye of every lover 
cf his kind are the present aspects of Europe. Dark 
and evil powers are in the ascendant, preparing to 
cast their baleful shade over the ancient abodes of 
science and religious freedom. Tyranny and priest- 
hood seem to be recovering their ancient sway. The 
chances of the future waver between anarchy and 
despotism. Enthusiasm for what is great and noble 
sickens and dies in the chill of perpetual -disappoint- 
ment. Efforts constantly abortive have plucked 
hope and courage from the popular heart. "Want of 
faith in God and in truth is at the bottom of that 
moral weakness and exhaustion which has laid so 
much knowledge and intelligence prostrate at the 
feet of their oppressors. 

For ourselves, there is happily much to preserve 
us from a similar catastrophe, in the freedom and 
activity of our religious Kfe; and if we can only 
keep up amongst us in all its strength the old Puri- 
tan spirit of independence and honesty, it will bear 
us safely through all our difficulties and straits. But 
in this quarter also, we are not without danger, and 
we must submit to have plain and unpalatable truths 
spoken to us. We congratulate ourselves as Pro- 
testant Dissenters, on our improved social position, 
and the more liberal and friendly tone that pervades 
the intercourse of different sects. But the change, 
desirable as it is, has not been one of pure gain to 
the cause of Christian truth and liberty. Less per- 
secuted from without, we are more open to insidious 
and corrupting influences from within. As we have 
become more easy, we have become more indifferent. 
16 



346 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

As we have less to struggle for, we seem to have 
less to preserve. Our peculiar principles are less 
precious to us, in the same degree that they are less 
openly attacked. Meanwhile foreign attractions act 
with increasing force on our loose and scattered ranks. 
Conviction gives way to the influence of fashion. 
Precedent, authority, appeals to the imagination and 
the feelings, worldly considerations — are continually 
absorbing numbers into the great vortex of the na- 
tional establishment, without the removal or dimi- 
nution of one objection which has long excluded the 
most conscientious minds from its communion, or 
the failure of one main argument that has justified 
for nearly two hundred years the independent exist- 
ence of Protestant Dissent. Our liberality softens 
into laxity, and so takes without resistance the im- 
pression of the worlds opinion and law. In their 
sensitiveness to public censure, men hesitate to think 
and act for themselves on a subject of all others the 
most important, and where opinion to be of any 
value, must be a personal conviction. In their ex- 
cess of refinement, they shrink from the alleged vul- 
garity of Dissent, wholly unconscious of the far 
deeper vulgarity— -a vulgarity which taints the in- 
most soul — of putting rank and fashion and the mere 
accidents of social position, in competition with the 
eternal claims of truth and uprightness. 

Among the facts of our time, of vast import in 
its bearing on the Future, is that great fact of our 
ISTational Church — so interwoven with our whole his- 
tory and constitution, and furnished with so vast an 
apparatus of instrumentalities for evil or for good. 



RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 347 

How must we deal with it ? Must it remain as it 
is ? Must it be destroyed ? Must it be reformed ? 
The two first alternatives would prove — at least in 
their immediate consequences — perhaps equally ca- 
lamitous to the cause of truth and the healthful 
growth of the popular mind. The third might not, 
in any form that it could now possibly take, meet 
all the objections of conscientious minds, or succeed 
in dissolving within the bosom of one comprehen- 
sive communion, the invidious distinction of Church 
and Dissent. But such a step (if still possible) 
would be the first and the safest towards a more 
perfect constitution of religious society, and most in 
harmony with that principle of historical develop- 
ment which pervades the working of all our institu- 
tions. To effect such a change, earnestness and con- 
sistency are required in all religious professors. 
Religion must become a conviction, and cease to be 
a question of fashion. Those within the Church 
who are dissatisfied with her discipline and disbe- 
lieve her formularies, must courageously come out 
of her and take the consequences, till she is reformed 
and purified. Those who are not of the Church, but 
have been nursed in sounder doctrine and a freer 
spirit, must not pusillanimously steal into her, while 
their convictions and her creeds continue unchanged, 
because some worldly disadvantage may still attach 
to honest profession, and vulgar minds cannot un- 
derstand the true nobleness of a manly and cour- 
ageous assertion of principle. If all in time past 
who knew the right, had only done the right, an over- 



348 CHRISTIAN ASPECTS OF FAITH AND DUTY. 

powering force of public opinion would long ago 
have compelled reform ; the Church would have been 
spared her corruptions ; and Dissent, instead of being 
stigmatised, would have been honoured for its mar- 
tyrdom. 

What we most need to avert the dangers and 
meet the wants of the present condition of society, 
and perpetuate a steady, healthful progress through 
the remainder of the century — is the revival of a 
noble and disinterested zeal for all things right and 
true and beautiful — for justice and liberty and social 
renovation all over the earth — for depth, solidity and 
thoroughness of knowledge — for high excellence in 
moral character and mental accomplishment — for 
simple-minded truthfulness and courageous honesty 
of religious profession. If liberty is to survive its 
dangers — if truth is to vanquish its obstacles — if 
pure and hearty religion is again to fill men's souls 
with spiritual life — it is to you whose minds and 
characters now ripening towards maturity, must fur- 
nish the moral elements of the next fifty years, that 
the world will look for the progressive achievement 
of those blessings, which it has long conceived and 
desired, but as yet has been unable to realise. Go 
forth, then, to this great work with every auspicious 
omen from the half century which you are now leav- 
ing behind you — faithful to your convictions, and 
filled with the generous enthusiasm which is the 
parent of every exalted aim and virtuous endeavour 
— through the changes of time, and the revolutions 
of opinion, and the new interests that are ever infus- 



RETROSPECT AND ANTICIPATION. 349 

ing themselves into human affairs, keeping your eye 
steadily fixed on great principles and putting your 
trust in the unchangeable purposes of the Eternal 
God. 



C. S. FRANCIS & CO., 



HAVE LATELY PUBLISHED 

STUDIES IN CHRISTIAN BIOGRAPHY: 

Or, Hours with Theologians and Reformers. By Samuel Osgood, 
Minister of the Church of the Messiah in New York. 

CONTENTS. 

i. Augustine and his times. 

ii. Augustine and his works. 

six. Chrysostom and the Ancient Pulpit. 

iv. Jerome and his times. 

v. Jerome and his works. 

vi. John Calvin and the reformed system. 

vii. Teresa and the Devotees of Spain. 

viii. Faustus Socinus and the revival of Unitarian Principles. 

ix. Hugo Grotius and the Arminians. 

x. George Fox and the English Spiritualists. 
xt. Swedenborg and the Mysticism of Science. 
xii. John Wesley and Methodism. 

xiii. Jonathan Edwards and the new Calvinism. 

xiv. John Howard and Prison Reform. 

Extract from Preface. 
" Some years since, the author had reason to believe that the study of Chris- 
tian history was much neglected, and that he might be of service, especially to 
the young people of his parish, by calling attention to the lives and labors of the 
leaders of Christian thought and action. He was thus led to accumulate a con- 
siderable amount of biographical material, which was used from time to time for 
various occasions, and presented now in fire-side conversations and familiar ad- 
dresses, and now in more elaborate lectures and reviews. What meets a want 
in one quarter may do the same elsewhere, and at the suggestion of several friends, 
this volume is now published." 

M We have seldom risen from the perusal of a book which has given us more 
pleasure, and from which we have derived more information than this— Provi- 
dence Journal. 

"This is the work of an accomplished scholar. The general reader will hardly 
appreciate the amount of learning and labor, and extended literary culture which 
is condensed in this volume." — Examiner. 

"Whoever reads this book, will probably be a wiser man; and unless re- 
markably obdurate, a more liberal, a more virtuous, and a more devout one." — 
Religious Magazine. 

" The author has always enjoyed a high reputation as a writer and scholar; 
and we are gratified to see so useful and interesting a result of his acquirements 
and industry, as the volume before us.*"— isTowie Journal. 



PUBLISHED BY C. S. FRANCIS & CO., NEW-YORK. 



DISCOURSES ON HUMAN NATURE, 

Human Life, and the Nature of Religion. By Orville Dewey, 
D.D., Pastor of the Church of the Messiah, in New-York. 



As the former volume is chiefly con- 
troversial, and is an admirable exposi- 
tion of the religious opinions of Unita- 
rians, and of the general principles and 
modes of reasoning by which they are 
sustained, so this is almost exclusively 
practical, and affords an exhibition of 
the spiritual results of those views, of 
the modes in which the religious life 
and character are conceived of, presented 
and urged by Unitarian preachers. — 
While bofh volumes, therefore, are ex- 
cellent books to put into the hands of 
those who would learn something of 
what Unitarianism is, and what are its 
practical tendencies and results, they 
are yet more valuable to instruct and 
establish the minds of those of our own 
body who would have "a reason" for 
the faith that is in them, the faith in 
which they have been educated, and to 
quicken and direct their efforts to attain 
the Christian character, the true spirit- 
ual life. In rich, deep, noble thought, 
in apt and forcible illustration, in im- 
pressive appeals, in an earnest, manly 
eloquence, in a living spirit and power, — 
power toconvinee the reason, to sway the 
affections, to move the conscience, gui- 
ding while it quickens its action, to 
wake up all the slumbering energies of 
the soul, make it feel its responsibleness, 
make it feel that religion is a reality, the 
great, solemn, and blessed reality of its 



being, — in all these respects we are wil- 
ling to compare the twenty-four sermons 
of this volume with any similar volume 
given to the world from any other de- 
nomination of Christians. — Christian 
Examiner. 

These Discourses abound in the pur- 
est and most exalted precepts, beautiful- 
ly adapted to almost every condition ot 
life, and replete with instruction, such 
as becomes the minister who himself 
feels that the religion he preaches is 
divine. We may venture to say that no 
reader, whatever may be the form of his 
creed, can rise from a serious perusal of 
this work without feeling his faith 
strengthened, his charity enlarged, and 
his reverence for the Christian religion, 
and for all holy things, increased by the 
exalted and ennobling vieAvs in which 
they are here set forth. — National In 
telligencer. 

Dr. Dewey has been characterized as a 
preacher for clergymen; and we would 
that numbers of them could sit as learn- 
ers at his feet. We earnestly hope that 
multitudes who have never enjoyed the 
advantage of hearing his expositions of 
the Christian life from his own lips, will 
embrace the opportunity afforded by this 
new edition of his works, to ascertain for 
themselves "what manner ofmanheis," 
in this his great office. — Christ. Inq. 



CONTENTS, 

On Human Nature. — I., II. On Human Nature. III. On the Wrong which 
Sin does to Human Nature. IV. On the Adaptation which Religion, to be true 
and useful, should have to Human Nature. V. The Appeal of Religion to Hu- 
man Nature. VI. The Call of Humanity and the Answer to it. VII. Human 
Nature considered as a ground for Thanksgiving. 

On Human Life.—VUl. The Moral Significance of Life. TX. That Every 
thaig in Life is Moral. X. Life Considered as an argument for Faith and Virtue- 
XI. Life is what we make it. XII. Inequality in the Lot of Life. XIII. The Mis- 
eries of Life. XIV. The School of Life. XV. The Value of Life. XVI. Life's 
Consolation in View of Death. XVII. The Problem of Life, Resolved in the Life 
of Christ. XVIII. Religion the Great Sentiment of Life. XIX. The Religion of 
Life. XX. The Voices of the Dead. 

On the Nature of Religion.— XXL, XXII., XXIII. The Identity of Religion 
with Goodness, and with a Good Life. XXIV. Spiritual Interests, Real and Sa 
preme 



PUBLISHED BY C. S. FRANCIS & CO., NEW-YORK. 



W&vitinQs of ©rbtUe Betoeg* 

DISCOURSES 

On the Nature of Religion ; and on Commerce and Business ; with 
some Occasional Discourses. By Orville Dewey, D.D., Pastor 
of the Church of the Messiah in IN ew- York. 



We know not where to point to a series 
of moral and religious writings superior 
in compass and power to those contained 
in these three volumes of Dr. Dewey's 
works. A happy unity connects all the 
constituent parts. The principles, so 
clearly stated in one volume, are carried 
out to their practical results in the dis- 
courses and orations that fill the other 
two. If we were to state the peculiar 
charm of Dr. Dewey's style, we should 
say that it lies in the remarkable combi- 
nation of colloquial ease with depth of 
thought, and frequent pathos and solem- 
nity. 

This volume presents specimens of 
three departments of composition, — ser- 
mons upon personal religion, discourses 
upon business morality, and addresses 
on various literary and ethical topics. 
No respectable American library can be 
without Dr. Dewey's volumes. Where- 
ever his views are peculiarly his own, 
they are stated with a force and candour 
that must win the respect alike of theo- 
logian and reformer. — Christian Exam. 

This volume contains a selection of the 
ablest discourses of this eloquent preach- 
er, on his views of the nature of religion, 
and relating to the common events and 
duties of civil and political life. They 



strike the reader as remarkably sensi- 
ble, clear, unpretending, and often thril- 
lingly eloquent . . . The earnest truths 
which he utters in behalf of honesty, 
justice, mercy and humanity, we could 
wish to be read by every one, and by 
none more thoughtfully than by ortho- 
dox Christians.— N. Y. Evcuigelist. 

Dr. Dewey is one of the most eminent 
divines, of the Unitarian faith, in this 
country ; while, as an eloquent and for- 
cible writer, he has few superiors in the 
whole range of the clerical profession. — 
Tribune. 

We have never before been so deliber- 
ate in reading a book of sermons, as this 
one. It is well printed, and well bound, 
and has altogether a very taking appear- 
ance. The most substantial reason, 
however, for our interest in the work, is 
its general intrinsic excellence. There 
are, to be sure, opinions and views, ex- 
pressed and insisted upon, which are at 
variance with our own ; but which we 
can more than tolerate because they 
seem to be part and parcel of the moral 
and intellectual stamina of the writer ; 
and which, therefore, we believe him to 
be perfectly conscientious in support- 
ing.— Chr is tian World. 



CONTENTS. 

On the Nature of Religion— I. Spiritual Interests, Real and Supreme. II., III. 
On Religious Sensibility. IV., V. The Law of Retribution. VI. Compassion for 
the Sinful. VII. God's Love; the chief Restraint from Siiij and Resource in Sor- 
row. VIII. The Difference between Sentiments and Principles. IX. The Crown 
jf Virtue. 

On Commerce and Business.— X. The Moral Law of Contracts. XI. The Mo* 
ral End of Business. XII. The Uses of Labour, and the Passion for a Fortune, 
XIII. The Moral Limits of Accumulation. 

Miscellaneous and Occasional— XIV. Oration before the Society of Phi Beta 
Kappa, at Cambridge. XV. The Arts of Industry, with their Moral and Intellec- 
tual Influence upon Society.— An Address before the American Institute. XVI. 
The Identity of all Art.— A Lecture before the Apollo Association of New-York, 
XVII. The Moral Character of Government. XVIII. The Slavery Question. XIX 
Public Calamities. 

4 



PUBLISHED BY C. S. FRANCIS & CO., NEW-YORK. 



mvitinQx of ©trbtlle JBetoeg^ 



DISCOURSES AND REVIEWS. 

Upon Questions in Controversial Theology and Practical Reli- 
gion. By Orville Dewey, D.D., Pastor of the Church of 
the Messiah, in New-York. 

CONTENTS: 
THE UNITARIAN BELIEF :— _ 

On the Nature of Religious Belief ; with Inferences concerning 
Doubt, Decision, Confidence, and the Trial of Faith. 

CURSORY OBSEEVATIONS ON THE QUESTIONS AT ISSUE BETWEEN 
ORTHODOX AND LIBERAL CHRISTIANS. 
I. On the Trinity. II. On the Atonement. III. On the Five 
Points of Calvinism. IV. On Future Punishment. V. Con- 
clusion ; the modes of attack upon Liberal Christianity, the 
same that were used against the Doctrine of the Apostles and 
Reformers. 

THE ANALOGY OF RELIGION WITH OTHER SUBJECTS CONSIDERED. 

DISCOURSES AND REVIEWS :— 

I. The Analogy of Religion. II. On Conversion. III. On the 
method of obtaining and exhibiting Religious and Virtuous 
affections. IV. Causes of indifference and aversion to Reli- 
• gion. ; . : , 

On the original use of the Epistles of the New Testament, 

compared with their use and application at the present day. 
On Miracles. 

The Scriptures considered as the Record of a Revelation. 
On the Nature and Extent of Inspiration. 
On Faith, and Justification by Faith. 

That Errors in Theology have sprung from false principles 

of Reasoning. 
On the Calvinistic Views of Moral Philosophy. 

It is the highest pleasure to meet touched and moved by him as by nc 

with a volume so replete with earnest other preacher now living to whom it 

thought, tempered with the kindest has been oi*r privilege to listen. We 

charity. Besides the intellectual plea- need not commend this volume ; and 

eure of studying the works of an essay- yet, as we have been reading it, we 

ist so accomplished and eloquent as Dr. could not help wishing, that its spirit. 

Dewey ; the reader enjoys the greater at least, of reverence and charity,' 

satisfaction of considering the highest might find a place in every heart; 

religious principles and problems with that those, who are not convinced by 

a writer who looks at them with the sim- its reasoning, might yet be profited by 

plicity and dignity of study which they its teachings, and go from its pages 

deserve. — Boston Daily Advertiser. better, and, therefore, wiser men. — 

The profound learning, cultivated Christian Register. 
taste, and eminent ability of Dr. Dewey, We rejoice whenever a competent 
give an interest to this work that will writer feels moved again and again to 
secure a large class of readers without discuss subjects involving the best in- 
the circle of his own religious denomi- tertbts of humanity. Such we con- 
nation. — Journal of Commerce. ceive to be the topics in the present 

There is no living writer to whom we volume, and which Dr Dewey has in- 

feel ourselves under greater obligations vested with fresh beauty and interest 

than to Dr. Dewey. We have been —Christian Worui. 



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